Featured Firstie: 1/C Benjamin Kwong

  POSTED ON: Friday, November 18, 2022 1:32 PM by mediarelations@usna.edu

Today’s Firstie Friday is MIDN 1/C Ben Kwong, a Newport Beach, California native and the 9th Company operations officer. He is a cyber operations major and member of the Navy Club Volleyball team.

He is also the vice president of the Navy Surf Club and regularly volunteers as a mentor and tutor at local schools with the Midshipman Action Group Mids for Kids program. His favorite position as a midshipman was as a plebe summer squad leader in 2021. 

Kwong is the recipient of the Stamps Scholarship that supported him this past summer at the Cambridge Security Initiative and allowed him to study at Reykjavik University in Iceland in March 2022. He was recently selected as the United States Naval Academy’s 55th Rhodes Scholar.

“I am honored to be given the opportunity to study at Oxford among such an elite group. To me, the Rhodes means I’ll forever have a stamp on my name that shows I have potential to do great things, but I still have to go out and make it happen,” said Kwong.

Yesterday, Kwong selected Naval Aviation as his service assignment with the Class of 2023. Before flight school, he will pursue Master of Science degrees in sustainability, enterprise, and the environment at Oxford University.

Category: Midshipman, General Interest