Geralis Garcia

Peer Interview

Andrei Goryushin is a volleyball superstar as well as a big fanatic of the sport, but he isn’t your typical athlete. He is currently a freshman at The City College of New York and is undecided. He was born in New York to Russian parents on, February 7th, 2001, his favorite food is borscht which is a sour soup and his favorite color is purple. Those are the basic facts you get to know about a person when you first meet them. His favorite sport is volleyball which may seem like a basic fact to most but to Andrei it means everything. When asked about his hobbies he included playing volleyball as one while mentioning eating food as well as “just chilling”.

When asked to describe his style, he said punk which is true when you see him in person. 

He wears glasses, has brown hair and he has a deep voice. Observing his personality, he makes a lot of jokes which makes him seem like an out-going person. Something interesting I learned about him was that he has his license and he mentioned he drives around the city. Most people our age don’t even have their permits so I thought it was cool he had a license and used it. 

He currently resides with his mother in Brooklyn and he is the youngest out of all his step-siblings. Lastly, the “basic” fact I wanted to mention was that he has a cat named Shirula and he says he is a big cat person. I can relate to him on this, my dog is very important to me so him mentioning he has a pet who he loves allowed us to relate to something. Something I haven’t mentioned yet was him moving to Georgia, this is an important event in his life because he faced something he never had to before. 

He briefly mentioned to me about his move to Georgia at the beginning of the interview. He mentioned moving to Georgia in the 6th grade made his life different in many ways. He says he was lonely because most of his close friends were back in Brooklyn. As he previously mentioned, it was hard for him because he couldn’t meet up with them to chill. He spent his middle school years in Georgia and he says it didn’t take long for him to adapt, mentioning how he actually became pretty popular although it was hard because most of the kids were hispanic or black. I can imagine what he means when he says it was hard due to the setting and culture change. After about a month he said he got integrated and started making a bunch of friends. However, he said he had to move back to NYC due to family problems in the 8th grade. 

Once he moved back NYC that’s where his passion for volleyball started, during his freshman year of high school. I was surprised when he mentioned he played volleyball because typically I don’t meet volleyball players. I always meet basketball or baseball players but being able to meet someone who plays another type of sport was refreshing. He says he was inspired to play volleyball when he saw some professional games. He mentioned how cool it looked and how he looked up to some of the players he saw. He gave me the names of the athletes specifically which are, Ivan Zaytsev and Earvin N’Gapeth. They are some of the best professional volleyball players so I can see why he was so inspired by them. Andrei played on a team in Highschool and was able to achieve a lot of things while playing. When asked about some of his achievements he mentioned getting an MVP award, Coach’s award, being the team captain and also having the most blocks of the season in NYC. I was curious to know if he was currently playing since I noticed he never mentioned anything about being on a team recently. He stated he isn’t on a team as of now because he can’t find a team he actually wants to be apart of and its expensive, but he still plays for fun. ”I love volleyball more than I love anything.”, I found this quote to be very inspiring seeing how big volleyball is to him. This is what I meant at the beginning of the article, he isn’t like any typical athlete. He’s different but in a good way, it was refreshing to meet him and hear him talk about volleyball because I also find it interesting. 

Staying on the topic of volleyball I figured I would ask him if that’s something he would pick career-wise since he said he was currently undecided. He surprisingly said he wasn’t interested in playing volleyball professionally but he gave me two other answers, one which he labeled a dream job and then a realistic career choice. The “dream job” he said was a food reviewer, where he would travel the world and review all types of foods. The realistic career choice he gave me was being an accountant. When we were both introducing ourselves and talking about our majors he said he might do business as well so I can see where the accountant job comes from. They also have very good salaries. I asked him who he looked up to, curious as to what he would say and the reason he would give. His high school English teacher was his answer, surprising me as its not a typical answer. The reason he gave was that his teacher treated everyone equally and he wants to really be like him. This was a very interesting answer and taught me more about him as a person. 

His motivation and what keeps him going on a day to day basis was also an interesting answer. He said he’s motivated to travel the world and eat food from all countries which also coincides with his dream job. I can tell it’s something he really wants to do based on the way he talks about it as well. Overall, the interview went better than I expected. I didn’t think I was going to be good at interviewing someone I just met but I realized the process was similar to that of getting to know someone for the first time just more straightforwardly asking questions. From his perspective, he said it was cool to get to know more of his classmates, also since he and I had a class together last semester but never spoke to one another up until now. I would like to leave the article off on a question and answer which resonated with me the most. I asked what advice would he give to his past self. He answered, “Don’t waste your youth”, something I think a lot of people might relate to.