Name: María Pía Zanetti
Age: 23
High School: Juan XXIII High School
Major: Bachelor's Degree in Economics
Year of graduation: 2008
Employment history: Economist at CERES
Interview published in March 2009.
In 2004, María Pía began pursuing a bachelor’s degree in economics and graduated in 2008. She completed internships at Paycueros and Prospéritas Capital Partners. She currently works as an economist at CERES.
Upon completing her sixth year of high school (with a focus on economics), her high school, Juan XXIII, offered her an academic excellence scholarship to study economics at ORT University, as she was the top student in her track at the school. “Everyone told me I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, so I decided to look into it. I spoke with a lot of people—professionals, teachers—and the vast majority encouraged me to study at ORT.”
She believes ORT has a very good curriculum, particularly in the area of macroeconomics. She notes that has faculty has excellent, both academically and personally, and that they “are quite approachable outside of class.”
She also notes that the library “has a wide variety of books, and there are several programmes and econometric programmes available for the different courses.”
Over the course of her studies, she formed a close-knit group of friends. “The truth is, we formed a great group and had a lot of fun: we’d go out for drinks, attend each other’s birthdays, and have a barbecue every now and then. What’s more, when we finished our degree, a small group of us got together for a graduation trip.”
María Pía recalls that over the course of four years, “many good and bad things happen, and as a result, the memories are endless. There’s always a course or a professor who, for some reason, leaves a special mark on your life: they shape your direction or spark an interest in a particular subject.”
In 2006, she completed a four-month internship at Paycueros. “There, I analyzed the various markets to which Uruguayan leather-producing companies exported their products. I compared prices and types of products being exported to identify whether there were any strategic opportunities for the company.”
She then completed another four-month internship at Prospéritas Capital Partners, a firm managing a venture capital fund for Uruguayan companies seeking to expand into foreign markets. “My tasks primarily involved researching all the variables needed to determine the viability of the investment—such as whether similar products already existed in the global market, what the international price was, and who the main buyers were, among other factors.”
She currently works as an economist at CERES (Center for the Study of Economic and Social Reality). “I analyze the global economic situation, its impacts on the region—primarily in Uruguay—and the policy challenges faced by the various stakeholders.”
“What I love about my job is that when we analyze reality, we have a theoretical model to guide us. We structure our thinking based on the models we studied at ORT; it never occurred to me that they could be so useful.”