By Tyler Sonderholzer
Junior Kevin Doan is the photo manager for the student-run newspaper, Baron Banner, and is in his 2nd-year at Baron Banner.
His passion is coding and that’s what he usually spends his time doing, “It’s like you’re building a skyscraper… it’s a really gratifying feeling,” he described. He first started coding in 6th grade when he joined a club with his favorite math teacher who taught him how to code and eventually, that’s where his love for coding began.
“I feel like I am able to speak an alien language, it looks so bizarre and no one else can understand it,” Doan said.
Besides coding, he usually spends his time skateboarding or reading. While he doesn’t like reading, he says it’s something he has to do. Doan educates himself about finance like how to do taxes so he can get a head start for the future.
“So in my mind, I’m like, how do I get ahead, instead of waiting for life to hit me,” Doan said about reading.
Doan works hard to get ahead because his dream school is Harvard.
“I feel like there’s got to be something special with these places like Harvard, Stanford, and Yale that makes so many successful people come out of there,” Doan said. “I need to see what that is and it probably would be Harvard.”
While Doan wants to keep his future under rapture and doesn’t want to give many details but work somewhere in the technology and business field as his dream job.
He credits his friend and editor-in-chief senior Justin Hsieh for joining the class. However, his main reason for joining the class was photography.
He has gotten a couple of awards for his photography skills in Orange County and the Southern California Journalism Education Association and he is happy to teach others the things to know about photography. He first got into photography in the 6th grade but 8th grade is where it really kicked off when he got a Canon 80D camera and he was assigned a video project for physics class.
“After all, the filming and editing an 8th-grade project was judgment day,” Doan said. “I love photography because each part is gratifying.”
When asked about his favorite thing about Baron Banner he said, “It’s that we care, you know, we give people opportunities to express themselves.”
He doesn’t waste any time throughout the day and gets everything done as soon as he can. His advice to younger people is to “Stop listening to what society tells you, do what you want to do.”
Doan is excited to make more contributions to Baron Banner and have another successful year with the class.