Photo Courtesy of Rojo Perez

Jillian Kurtz

After graduating from the Communications Department at Florida Southern College as a news media major in 2007, Rojo Perez did not know what the future would hold for him.

He was pushed to think outside of the box and was challenged to incorporate many aspects of his life into his studies by his professors.

Now as an up-and-coming comedian, Perez will be returning to Florida Southern Jan. 26 at 9 p.m. to perform a show for students as part of Scholars Weekend.

Photo Courtesy of Rojo Perez“My experience at Southern was extremely in uential in my decision to do comedy,” Perez said. “Even though I was a news media major, the professors embraced my silliness and let me hand in weird music videos and documentaries as my final projects. They allowed me to look past the traditional assignments. At Southern is where I also met a friend who took me to my first open mic performance. Without him, I’m not sure I’d be even answering these questions.”

For Perez, a typical day involves checking emails, social media, news and working on writing that is not standup related. Going over the previous show’s recording to work on making the next one even better is important for constant improvement. To add to his set, Perez watches ‘King of Queens’ reruns and then finally gets dressed to head out for the night to perform.

“Coming back to Southern to perform is a cool feeling,” Perez said. “You want those who saw you grow up be proud of what you do. I feel that getting the invite in someway says that; also the fact that they are re-naming a wing in the library after me is pretty cool. My goals are to continue to make a living on performing comedy, to be undeniably funny. I want to use whatever success I obtain to further the voice for Puerto Rican people and also to remove Matt Joyce as the coolest alumni to come out of our class.”

Photo Courtesy of Rojo PerezPerez’s advice to students is that it is okay to be lost in choosing a career path. According to Perez, getting a degree, embracing the college years and being okay with still guring everything out is an important part of guring out life as an adult. The scariest thing is to look back in 25 years and regret not trying something, such as not going for a passion.

“Being a communications major gave me the independence to work on my own and the con dence to fail,” Perez said. “They gave me the tools to try, but allowed me to use those tools how I saw fit. Writing for the school paper and freelancing at The Ledger helped me learn that I enjoyed the process of writing, but I eventually realized my ego was too big to write the story and not be the story.”

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