Dr. Loarre Andreu Perez reflects on her first semester at SDSU

This past fall marked a significant milestone in Dr. Loarre Andreu Perez’s career as it was her first semester teaching for the School of Journalism and Media Studies (JMS) and her first as an assistant professor. Now entering her second semester, she is excited to be teaching JMS 780,  an advanced seminar in PR Theory for graduate students, as well as JMS 481, a PR writing class for undergraduate PR majors. 

Andreu Perez has enjoyed her time in San Diego thus far and admits the best part of her teaching experience has been the students. 

“What I like most is seeing how invested my students are. They all try to be with different campus organizations and professional organizations. They go to events and they have internships – and if they don’t, when they come up with their projects, they really try to do the work of a PR professional,” said Andreu Perez.

Coming from Spain, Andreu Perez put a lot of thought into where she would go to school for her graduate program. Although she ultimately decided to go to the University of Oklahoma, SDSU was one she had considered.

“I ended up choosing another school but SDSU was in my mind, and I was picturing myself here when I was a student. Now, I ended up coming as a professor so I guess it was meant to be, a mission fulfilled,” said Andreu Perez.

Andreu Perez spent her undergraduate years studying journalism in Spain. Although she enjoyed the journalism field, she knew that she wanted to pivot to PR for her future career. 

“I first became interested in public relations after reading a book, a novel, and I was like oh my gosh, I didn’t know PR existed. This is what I need to do with my life,” said Andreu Perez.

When it came time to get her Ph.D., Andreu Perez thought hard about the topic she would study. Ultimately, she realized that her entire life, she had been a “fangirl” as one of her hobbies and pleasures and she could consider that culture from an academic perspective.

“If you think about all of the celebrities, politicians, sports teams, anything – they have a fandom that is managed by an organization, by a business. I wondered who is the communication person that manages all of that and promotes these people, so I realized we could apply PR theories to these phenomena,” said Andreu Perez.

Looking into the future, Andreu Perez hopes to teach a variety of classes for JMS.

“Some of my classes could be about fandoms, of course, because that’s what I've been researching. And I think that students would be interested in something entertainment related. I noticed that a lot of my students mentioned entertainment PR as the path they want to take,” said Andreu Perez.