Welcome to my blog, my name is Borja Hazza and I'm the product of diversity and globalization. With Barcelona, Spain, and Miami, USA, as central points of reference, I have grown across the globe: from child to teen and from teen to young adult, owing much of how I understand the world to the way in which my mom chose to raise me, the privileges (and disadvantages) that come when your family is spread over continents and FIU's Worlds Ahead global education.
My father is Arabic American and as a student and a business man has spent considerable amounts of time in Africa, Europe, and Central America; my mother comes from a wine growing region in central Spain, studied law in University of Barcelona and has a passion for the law, traveling and learning. They separated when I was a young child; as a kid of the pre-iPhone, pre-Facebook, and pre-JetBlue generation, I was mostly raised by my mother until well into my mid-teens. At the beginning of my high school junior year, I moved to Florida with my dad, my stepmother and my three younger sisters and attended Cypress Bay High School.
My mother has a private law practice, which allows her considerable freedom of both decision and time, and is a successfully adventurous woman. Those two characteristics paired together, made for a wonderful childhood and adolescence. Those eventful eighteen years of my life englobed, due to either business or vacation/education, long periods of time in England, France, Morocco, Atlanta, Ireland, California, Florida, China, Italy, Costa Rica, and Japan. During that time, Spain remained our main home, which is an incredibly diverse country on its own.
Whenever we visited/lived somewhere new, we adapted to the circumstances (weather, food, transportation, space availability...), went to local places and never spent more than a healthy amount of time in tourist traps. She taught me from a very young age, the normalcy of different customs and to always keep an open mind when learning.
In 2010 I decided to move to Florida to be closer to my dad and sisters, while on a journey of self-discovery, independence, growth, and the excitement of living on my own while pursuing the American Dream. I had always been intrigued by the underline issues between countries, the relation of cultures, markets, and interdependence, and how is it that the world can be so interconnected but still so distant in other ways. I'm lucky to have encouraging parents, siblings, friends and family on both sides of the Atlantic.
I attended Broward College and earned an Associate of Arts in International Relations. In 2013 I enrolled at FIU to pursue a B.A in International Relations and Affairs. With its diverse student body and professors, FIU has truly given me a global education of how our world works, and how history has paved the way to the current state of international relations. At FIU, I've been able to make new friends, and connect with students, of all sorts of backgrounds, pursuing all kind of degrees. I'm lucky I've also been able to share FIU's World's Ahead education with my sister Sophie, growing our understanding of the world together. Through Study Abroad and the Global Medallion Program, I've joined a network of inspiringly young individuals striving for both, self and global improvement.
During my B.A I've gotten a comprehensive look at the cultural, political and economic development of the world, specializing in the U.S, Europe, Eurasia and Asia but without disregarding the Middle East, Latin America and Africa. FIU has given me the intellectual foundation and research tools needed to methodically analyze the glorious progress of humanity and the richness of Earth's cultural diversity.