As graduation approaches, we take a moment to celebrate Daniel Park, our 2025 salutatorian. For the last four years, he has been a consistent, hard-working student, ensuring he will have no regrets. Over the course of his high school experience, Park participated in numerous clubs, sports and took 17 AP classes. With the support of his family and friends, Park was able to achieve his success. 

Park made the most out of his time at Mill Creek, he was involved in cross country, track and field, multiple clubs and took many AP classes while still staying ahead of his class. Some of his most prominent contributions include iLead, activities director for the All Hands On Deck volunteer club, the president and co-founder of the ACT division of the SAT/ACT prep club, tutoring officer of Mu Alpha Theta, the vice president of Red Cross, as well as vice president of model UN. Despite all the success, there were times when Park had to take a step back and refocus when he was struggling. “Once I knew that it was something I struggled in, I started to put more hours in; ask the teacher more questions, get more involved in the classroom, ask questions,” Park, 12. Park goes on to explain how this approach works specifically towards AP Physics for him.

Park intends to major in neuroscience after graduating High School. He enjoys being in a STEM environment and loves science. He chose to major in neuroscience as it was the closest thing that combined both STEM and science. He intends to become a neurosurgeon to help others in the future, according to Park, “ Neuroscience just felt right. Later on, I wanna become a doctor, more specifically a neurosurgeon. Helping others is something that I wanna do, so neuroscience was the one”.  Becoming a doctor in the future is ideal for him as he wants to continue to help others. He has been on mission trips to Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, contributing to his proclivity for helping others. According to Park, “Something really upsetting was seeing people afflicted with burdens and pains that can be easily fixed in the US, but [that] aren’t available in those kinds of countries, with the medical stuff that they don’t have.” He would like to start a firm in the future to help others in need who don’t have the medical equipment that the US has.

Park has many supporters and many people who influenced him in his High School career. His parents have been the biggest supporters as they would provide him with study books, notebooks, an iPad or even just some time to study. They would respect his school choices as they contributed to his success. According to Park, “Like the things that I have right now — my iPad, my MacBook — I asked my parents for those to study, and without hesitation, they provided for me, because they knew that if I needed it for school, they were gonna provide it, no matter what. If I needed to stay at home instead of helping my dad with his business, or if I needed to go to the library and ask my parents for a ride, they would support me,” he is grateful for having supportive parents who sacrificed for him to do well in High School.

Despite all the hours of hard work and sacrifices Park has made to get where he is today, he gives this advice to students. “Enjoy where you are right now. Appreciate your family, appreciate the people you’re with. And that’s life in general; appreciate the moment that you’re living in right now, because if you set your happiness somewhere else or in the future, then that happiness is never going to come, because you’re always going to be dissatisfied with the result.” Also to “have the thought of what’s ahead of you, so you can work towards it. Find that balance.”