Scholar Stories: Liu’s Biomedical Engineering Path Reaches Beyond Family Volleyball Legacy

Scholar Stories: Liu’s Biomedical Engineering Path Reaches Beyond Family Volleyball Legacy

Continuing the series that began in 2016-17, each Wednesday MGoBlue.com will highlight a Michigan student-athlete and their academic pursuits. These are our Scholar-Athlete Stories, presented by Absopure.

By Kiera Burns

There’s sure to be a reaction anytime someone introduces themselves as a biomedical engineering major, and senior setter Jenni Liu is pursuing the challenging major in stride along with extracurricular research and a master’s degree in bioinformatics.

Liu’s parents both played professional volleyball, but in no way did they force her into the sport. She chose to give the sport a try around age 11, playing for a club team in her small hometown in Germany. Speaking about her parents’ initial hesitancy about her playing the sport, Liu emphasized that playing was her own decision.

“They also wanted to open up other career paths that are not sport-related because they went the sports path,” she said, “which was great, but they wanted me to have a happy and secure life and let me choose.”

Her mom was her first coach and taught her technique at the beginning of her volleyball career

“Volleyball was bringing our family together, something we would talk (about) at the dinner table and we would talk after practice,” said Liu.

When she moved up to other teams that her mom was not coaching, Liu described how her mom was still involved by spending lots of time teaching her technique outside of her team’s official practice and pushing her in a positive way.

“She took the time and gave me extra reps,” said Liu. “I think thanks to all of her instruction and tips I was able to advance and be part of the recruiting process for the German youth national team.”

Liu went to boarding school to play with the German youth national team in Berlin and credits this experience with making the college transition easier since she had been living away from home since she was 15.

She described how this prepared her for the similarly rigorous schedule of a student-athlete.

“The national team and Olympic sports center is in Berlin, so they recruit young girls to come to boarding school and practice, live, eat and sleep together a little bit like here to prepare for the national team.”

Liu added that the national team had more perspective and that she credits having the…