Henry Nye
Year: Junior
Major: Communication Studies
Hometown: Arlington, Va.
You may or may not know Henry and Ellen Nye – two of the many sibling pairs at CNU. However, being the nephew and niece of the famous science TV Personality and activist Bill Nye isn’t all there is to them: both Henry and Ellen have paths different from those of their uncle.
I had the chance to speak with Henry last week, and he’s a pretty awesome dude: quiet, but constantly smiling. “Oh, wow. That’s it?” he’d said when I had told him we were finished, putting down my pen and telling him he was free to go. When I explained how I like to do my Campus Celebrity Interviews (more of a profile rather than just Q&A), he completely understood and smiled.
Part of the reason he chose CNU was because, out of all the in-state schools he looked at, CNU seemed like the safest and best choice for him. And, like so many of the rest of us, he found that he liked it more than he would’ve expected. He said the same thing about choosing Communication Studies as a major. “I took interpersonal communication as an elective when I was a freshman, and I really liked the class.” He chuckled then, “To be honest, I’m not too sure what I’d like to do as far as a career after I graduate, but I liked how Comm was a broad major and that’s why I chose it.”
Despite not being too sure what he’s going to do after graduation, Henry knows that it would be a dream of his to write for TV. “I think that would be something I’d love to do, and it would be really fun.”
There’s a bit more of a hidden depth to Henry than a lot of people know – especially his love for sports. “I used to play tennis when I was younger, and I also played a little bit of bowling and golf… Most people actually don’t know that.”
Living in NoVA allowed Henry to have access to something that led him to pull a prank with his friends you might not guess: Christmas Trees. “In my sophomore year – the high school I went to was called Yorktown and had a huge ‘Y’ in the middle of the football field – right after winter break, my friends and I took all the Christmas Trees that everyone was going to throw away and put them all along the ‘Y’ of our football field.” This, of course, was what he considered to be one of the most outrageous things he’s ever done.
On a lesser scale of outrageousness, later in his sophomore year, Henry ran for junior class president for the following year – and won! “It was something I’d done as a joke,” he said. “I definitely wasn’t expecting to win.” He says that he was never one of those people who was ever really interested in student government, but I’m sure it proved that people definitely paid attention and knew who he was.
Of course, growing up people knew who he was, too. I just HAD to ask him about what it’s been like living as the nephew of Bill Nye, and as soon as I did, a knowing smile sprouted on his face. “At CNU, it definitely came out as soon as I got here that I was Bill Nye’s nephew – especially since one of the first things the RA’s ask you is to state some weird facts about yourself.” He goes on to say that being Bill Nye’s nephew definitely helped him meet people who either became his friends or he met friends through. Henry also talks about how he never really made the connection about how important his uncle really was until his science teachers would play his uncle’s show during class in elementary school.
However, Henry really doesn’t want too much to be in the limelight like his uncle when he gets older. In fact, he’d really love to live the “normal, middle-class life with a family.” Considering that he’d love to live in an area near the Lakes, like in Maine where he once visited family, it might not be too hard to do.