Samer Roz
I was born in Canada to a Nigerian-born Lebanese father and a Venezuelan mother. When I was young, I always heard my mother singing very old songs in Spanish. Then when I would visit Lebanon, the whole family would be singing in Arabic. So it’s probably no surprise that music is still very important to me, alongside sports and my studies, of course. I describe myself as an extremely organized person—I don’t like to waste time and I love having everything tightly scheduled, right down to my meals.
"I also wanted to have the business acumen in order to be able to bring business and new and evolving technology together. This, paired with the fact that I liked the idea of five years for two degrees, made the choice simple."
A natural leader, talented musician, and a very busy student!
Samer Roz is the perfect embodiment of the incredible diversity that characterizes the entire IE Community. With his parents having culturally very different heritage, and growing up in yet another distinct culture, his draw to IE University was inevitable!
But while it’s true that he places a high value on that element of his life in Madrid, he was also attracted to the possibility of completing two degrees in five years. So our Dual Degree in Business Administration & Data & Business Analytics fit the bill perfectly.
“I had always liked the logic of numbers, and had a feeling that I would enjoy programming too, which I have,” he tells us. “But I also wanted to have the business acumen in order to be able to bring business and new and evolving technology together.” All these factors combined made Samer’s choice “simple” in the end.
Given his love of music, it comes as no surprise that he’s especially taken with the elements of the program where he feels he can express his creative instincts and innovate. He names Data Insights and Visualization as a particular favorite course, as it’s about presenting data in a way that allows him to tell its story. But the “science” of the entrepreneurship studies he’s undertaking as part of the IE Impact initiative is another outlet where Samer feels empowered to turn his ideas into reality.
Of course, given IE University’s hugely dynamic student experience and myriad clubs, he found both. “When we all come together, and we're on the same page, it sounds really good,” he says of the band. “And then when a basketball team is all together, on the same page, we play really well. It's so much more gratifying to be able to trust other people and have their trust in you.”
That sense of unity extends to Samer’s academic life, too. Asked what advice he’d offer to any future students of the Dual Degree in Business Administration + Data & Business Analytics, he immediately refers to the class as a whole. “The beauty of the Dual Degree is that you are put in a class with people who also felt like they wanted a challenge at university. So the people you meet could eventually become business partners and lifelong friends,” he says. “That said, I suggest talking to as many people as you can,” he concludes.
Given how tightly Samer schedules his days, right down to the time he eats his meals, we don’t doubt that his drive to succeed, and to take other people with him on that journey, will lead him to success. Not just for the remaining years of his Dual Degree but also into his professional life and beyond.