Kevin Bui is not just part of the senior class’ prestigious top ten, but he is also an excellent student, an integral cog in the crew team, an amazing friend, and most importantly, a great example of how Malden High School can bring out the best in someone.
Kevin Bui has not always lived in Malden, although he shared that he loves living in Malden more “than in any other place” he has lived so far in his life. Bui was actually born 3,000 miles away in San Jose, California. Bui lives with his two parents, both of whom immigrated from Vietnam: his dad to Texas, his mom to California. Bui also has one younger brother, Brian Bui. Bui joked that, “We say we hate each other, but we love each other dearly.” Originally attending Blue Hills Regional High School in Canton, Mass, for 9th grade, Bui finally landed in Malden the summer before his sophomore year. One of the first things he joined at MHS was the crew team, and that was something that Bui would hold on to like glue for the rest of his high school career.
Kevin Bui would have never pictured himself being a part of something like the crew team earlier in his life. When asked to describe himself as a child, he thought back and reveals he was “kind of antisocial” and “had very few close friends, if any at all.” It didn’t help that his freshmen year at Blue Hills offered little to no opportunities to get involved outside of the classroom. Blue Hill was just a place where Bui was learning engineering, but MHS offered so much beyond that. Bui was actually somewhat apprehensive at the idea of joining the team at first, but his friend Chris Lee, also a senior at MHS, had urged him to consider it. “He kept nagging me to join, and it took like a month and a half,” shared Bui. Crew gave Bui a chance to come out of his shell, and create some strong, powerful friendships. “I lived under a rock,” is how Bui described himself before his tenure at Malden High School. “They really ripped me out of my shell.”
Crew is one of the biggest things that Bui will miss about MHS. This school has offered many things that his previous school did not, ranging from numerous after school opportunities such as clubs and sports, as well as more rigorous classes, but the crew team is the most memorable. When asked about the things he will miss about high school, Bui exclaimed, “all of the crew team.” The crew team allowed him to make relationships that he thought he could not make earlier in his life, and it allowed him to peel off his shell for good, and be able to interact with others as himself. Bui even fantasized that if “[I] could go back, I would have transferred to Malden during my freshman year, and joined the crew team right away.”
Aside from crew, Bui had been a part of the Indoor and Outdoor track team, in junior and freshman year respectively. He has participated in the Walks for Hunger, in 2011 and 2012. Bui was also a volunteer at the Museum of Science in Boston during his junior year. Bui is an avid reader outside of school, enjoying fantasy and mystery novels. Some of his favorite authors are Terry Pratchett with his Disc World series and Dan Brown with his Robert Langdon series. Bui is going to continue his education at the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, where he will study Biomedical engineering. One of the reasons Bui chose this area is because this particular major “offers a lot of pathways.” When asked what else he planned to do at college, Bui joked that he planned to “avoid the freshmen 15 and stay in shape.”
While Bui is not entirely sure what the future holds, his new found confidence and personality will be sure to get him much further in life than he may have thought previously.
