World-Traveling Freshman Puts Down Roots at Caltech

Over the coming weeks, we'll be featuring several members of the new freshman class. The 244 students (156 male and 88 female) of the class of 2015 were selected from a pool of 5,225 applicants and represent 26 countries.

Peter Henry is one of 244 new Caltech freshmen who can now call Pasadena home. But a new locale is no big deal to Henry, who has lived all over the world. In fact, his four years at Caltech will be the first four in a row he's spent living in his native United States. 

Henry's father is a physician sponsored by a missionary program, so even though Henry was born in Kentucky, he completed preschool in France, kindergarten in Belgium, part of second grade in a U.S. public school, fourth grade in a French-run embassy school, fifth grade in a U.S. private school, eighth grade online, and high school in Kenya. His mother homeschooled him for everything in between while they lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Having lived in some unstable places and growing up always on the move, Henry had to learn to cope with chaos. In 1997, his family was forced to evacuate from the area where they lived with about a day's notice because of nearby rebel activity. He believes this kind of uncertainty in his life led, at least in part, to his passion for math and science. "In a world where the future was never clear, I appreciated anything that displayed consistency," he says. "Math and science are beautiful pursuits because they showcase a supernatural clarity."

Henry, 18, comes to Caltech with a wealth of unusual experiences. Take, for example, the time junior year when a new student came to his school in Kenya, the Rift Valley Academy, and wasn't told to hide his food if a window was left open. "Monkeys came in through the window, found the food, destroyed the bag it was in, and looked all over for more," Henry says.

Such experiences may be uncommon for American students, but Henry says the Rift Valley Academy was similar in some ways to private schools in the United States—there were AP classes, a variety of varsity sports teams, and an SAT testing center. "A typical American student might find it an odd mix of the normal and the alien," he says.

Henry remembers reading about Caltech for the first time while in Kenya. "Caltech just seemed too good to be true," he recalls. "It was very small, had an amazing student-to-faculty ratio, had manageable 'houses' instead of monstrous dorms, was in Southern California, was better known and respected in scientific circles than the Ivies… and on and on. Then I finished reading the article, looked back at the admission stats, and probably spat out whatever I was drinking at the time. My next two years were spent making sure that I could make it past the admissions committee." 

Now that he's here, Henry is interested in studying computer science. He also enjoys hip-hop dance and would like to get involved in House or student government, while learning to surf and picking up a method of movement called Parkour. And he's already dreaming of his next move, "I'd like to learn Korean and work in South Korea," he says. "There's so much potential there in the computing world. I think that country is the next big thing in information sciences, and I'd love to be a part of that."  So much for putting down roots.