When Jeffery Liu (Class I) looks ahead, 35 years from now, he doesn’t pretend to know where the world will take him. “I could be on the moon, everything’s possible,” he said. Liu, a senior who resides in Needham, embodies unpredictability. It’s his modus operandi: he allows one interest to unexpectedly lead into another as he continues to try new things. “I’m trying to figure out what is interesting to me. I want to wake up and be excited for what I do,” he said.
Liu thinks that living so close to campus has been both incredibly convenient and a horrific curse. “It’s terrible for my long-standing quest to be an early riser,” he said. Liu began his academic career as a wee lad in the Needham Public school system before moving to Holy Name in West Roxbury for the rest of elementary school. After that, he was off to Nobles, joining in seventh grade and in the midst of COVID. “Exciting times,” he said. Understatement like this is commonplace while in conversation with Liu. He doesn’t oversell, even when talking about activities that have shaped who he is within the Nobles community. One of those activities is robotics.
Liu first encountered the program in his freshman year while he was enrolled in Strength and Conditioning. The strength part, he admitted, he felt detached from. “Not going to lie, I’m not the best powerlifter,” he said. One day, another student within the program, Simon Juknelis (N ’24), invited Liu to the robotics room. “It was hella cool,” he said. It took Liu one look to recognize that he wanted to delve deeper into this fascinating new world. The next year, Liu joined the robotics program. “I jumped straight into the deep end by working on the machine-learning system on our robot camera so that it could drive autonomously. It was an area that I had next-to-no experience in prior, but despite that, I never felt lost because of the incredible mentors of my teammates and coaches,” he said. However, there was a problem. Nobles’ robotics afternoon program begins in December, while most other schools’ programs start in September. Rather than seeing this as a disadvantage, Liu was excited. “The thrill comes from the sprint,” he said. “There’s a satisfaction in knowing that you have less time, you have fewer resources, but you’re able to go toe to toe with these incredible teams and do super well.”
Before joining the team, Liu had some introductory coding experience, but nothing substantial. He created a game with his friend in Scratch titled Galaxy Hero when he was younger, which had garnered around 1,000 views on the platform. “It’s the most popular coding project I’ve ever had, and it probably still is,” he said. At Nobles, Liu took the AP Computer Science A course, enjoyed the act of software development, and then found a passion for hands-on programming with robotics. He learned about machine learning through a vision system for a robot, a field he knew little about before joining the team. “I was able to pick it up and learn on the fly, and I think that’s the fun of robotics,” he said.
Outside robotics and academics, Liu’s interests are scattered. This spring, he’s playing Ultimate Frisbee, and in the fall, he ran cross country. He also captains the chess team, is Editor-in-Chief of the Cogito magazine, leads the East Asian Pacific Islander affinity group, and tutors at Achieve. He enjoys history, and recently read Candide while on an EXCEL trip to Namibia. “Fun and thought-provoking book, especially while reading it under the desert sun and star-lit sky,” he said.
Long drives became one of the most memorable aspects of his trip to Namibia. Though he had not taken many long road trips before, this experience changed his perspective. “Road tripping is honestly underrated,” he said. “Sitting in a bus, chatting with friends while a springbok raced alongside the road was an unforgettable experience.” As senior spring slowly comes to an end, there’s plenty on the horizon for Liu. “I love Nobles, I’m sad to leave, and at the same time, there’s a lot to look forward to,” he said. As the senior class prepares to leave Nobles, it might be worth hanging onto a little of Jeff Liu and his embrace of uncertainty, because who knows where anyone will be in 35 years? Could be in a lab. Could be a long road trip in the middle of upstate New York. Could be on the moon — just keep on exploring what you love.
