Six months ago, he was just a high school senior coming for GTIIT open day. Today, he sits in the mechanical lab, debugging a talking, moving recruitment robot. In just half a year, this young man has approached closer to his passion. Today, let's meet Liu Xiangjun, a freshman in Mechanical Engineering and Robotics program at GTIIT, and hear the dreams that inspire him.

Liu Xiangjun

High School: Haimen Experimental School，Jiangsu

Program: Mechanical Engineering and Robotics 

In Liu Xiangjun's eyes, he wasn't someone who "focused only on exams" in high school. Instead of repeating knowledge, he longed to explore the world outside textbooks. This curiosity drove him to earn an amateur radio license, searching for his own interests through hands-on practice.

By chance, he learned about GTIIT through an online livestream. "Solid foundations in science and engineering, plus a spirit that encourages and even embraces free exploration—it hit me right away. At that moment, I knew this was my dream university."

After Gaokao, to confirm his expectations, Xiangjun traveled thousands of miles from Jiangsu to Shantou for GTIIT open day. The beautiful campus, cutting-edge lab equipment, the patient guidance from professors during one-on-one conversations, and the free, open Q&A sessions in mini lectures—every detail he encountered that day brought more certain of his choice. He quickly learned about GTIIT's teaching style and academic atmosphere.

After joining GTIIT, the pure English teaching environment was his first challenge, but he quickly found his way. "Actually, as long as you listen carefully in class, you will find technical vocabulary gets used repeatedly and naturally pick it up." Meanwhile, GTIIT's peer tutoring program and professors' office hours provided solid support that helped him quickly adapt to the learning pace here.

Liu Xiangjun (Left 2) with friends

"Asking questions proactively" was the keyword Xiangjun mentioned repeatedly during the interview, which is a vivid reflection of GTIIT's "problem-driven teaching method." I'm very interested in math and have some wild ideas, and my algebra teacher always listens carefully to every question I ask. Besides answering patiently, he also expands on the knowledge points, giving me a deeper understanding of many concepts." After one semester, Xiangjun learned more in class, "as long as you are brave enough to ask questions, even if your initial expression is not fluent, perseverance will finally lead to progress."

For research exploration: academic year won't hold you back

Military training performances, Club night—beyond academics, Xiangjun maintains the same exploratory enthusiasm from high school, shining on the stage of extracurricular activities. "For balancing studies and life, my principle is simple: prioritize course and assignment, then participate in projects and activities based on remaining time." When it comes to time management, he always has a clear plan.

Most of his free time, Liu Xiangjun devotes to research exploration. His experience joining Prof. Liu Mingyi's mechanical engineering research group is the best practice of GTIIT's motto "Dream it. Do it."

"At that time, Prof. Liu's recruitment email was sent to sophomore and above, but our peer mentors forwarded it to us." Learning about the recruitment information, Xiangjun was very interested in it. After brief hesitation, despite not meeting the grade requirement, he decided to try. "How would you know if you don't try? Even if I failed, I wouldn't lose anything." With this courage, Xiangjun attended the group's recruitment meeting and successfully passed the assessment based on his passion and potential, becoming one of the youngest members of the team.

Research Group Meeting

In the research group, Xiangjun works side by side with senior students, developing GTIIT's recruitment robot from scratch. He mainly handles the head motor's steering control, ensuring the robot's head can stably face the person asking questions. Real research experience made him deeply understand the gap between theory and practice: "In real projects, you will meet numerous problems under non-ideal conditions. Unlike textbook exercises, you can't solve them through standard steps. You need constant trial and error, repeated debugging, to find solutions." From "getting the calculation right" to "making the system run stably," under the guidance of the team, Xiangjun grew rapidly.

Head Motor's Steering Control Test

"Academic year is never the threshold for participating in research projects—courage and self-learning ability are what matter." This experience also confirmed what he said as a freshman representative at the opening ceremony:" Here, as long as you’re brave enough, the whole world will become your library and lab."

For the future, Xiangjun already has a clear plan. "At this stage, I want to solidify my foundations in math, physics, and computer science. I hope to participate in engineering and research-related projects and courses if I got chance, continuously improving my technical skills and engineering intuition through practice."

Carrying curiosity and courage, this goal-oriented, determined young man is writing his own growth story at GTIIT.

Text: GTIIT News & Public Affairs

Photos: Liu Xiangjun, GTIIT News & Public Affairs