Wearing multiple hats is a common metaphor for someone who functions in many roles, and senior Parker Huang has worn them all, being a swimmer, a math tutor, UIL mathematician and computer scientist. 

Huang has made sure to take advantage of any club or organization he could join and he has been a member of UIL academics since freshman year.

“Academics kind of forces me to work hard and study a lot more than I would probably do,” Huang said. “It lets you put more effort into school and stuff and it pushes me, I definitely would not be where I am today without it.”

Huang placed first in district in Calculator Applications, Comp Sci, Mathematics and number sense at the district UIL meet in March. He also placed third in Science. Huang placed first individually in Computer Science at Regionals and will compete at the State meet on May 19.

“Senior year is my first year [at State] in computer science,” Huang said. “I remember finding out I won region for comp sci on Friday and I was so excited.”

Outside of academics, Huang made the state swimming competition his junior year for the 200 medley relay.

“That was definitely pretty, memorable, especially just because I had gone into the season not thinking that that was even possible,” Huang said. “And then my teammate Evan came along and kind of just pushed that dream, like very much, to the forefront.”

Huang said he feels that he has little to no regrets in his high school career, and said the only thing he wishes he did differently was being more focused on academics freshman year.

“I feel like part of it was because it was the first year coming back after lockdown and COVID,” Huang said. “I felt like it was a whole new reset and I wish I had tried a little bit harder, because I feel like my freshman year had my weakest grades, which, you know, usually it should be like harder classes should have greater grades.”

Fortunately, Huang was able to improve his grades, and due to this he had the opportunity to apply to numerous universities.

“I applied to M.I.T, but I was not sure whether or not I would go there,” Huang said. “You know, I’ll never know because I didn’t get accepted, but I definitely think that it would have been a hard decision regardless of whether or not I got accepted, but I’m very happy with where I am.”

According to Huang, he felt that college was far out of reach and had a mixture of emotions, a mixture of being sad and excited to graduate.

“It’s a lot of changes that will happen in all these next few months,” Huang said. “And I just kind of have to get through it and do the best that I can.”

Huang will be majoring in computer science at The University of Texas at Austin to land a job as a software engineer.

“I feel like at the end of the day, I’ll go where the money is,” Huang said. “And I know all of that kind of stuff interests me anyways, so I feel like I wouldn’t be forcing myself to do those kinds of things.

Nearing the end of his high school career, Huang wishes those still in high school luck, and has advice for upcoming seniors, juniors and underclassmen.

“Don’t stop working hard,” Huang said. “The biggest thing that I’ve seen a lot of people do is giving up when things are hard or when they necessarily don’t like to do things, always give your best because you’ll find that it’s definitely more rewarding.”