Following the trajectory of one's dreams, [thanks to ENS Paris-Saclay]

Coming from an Amazonian village to study economics in France, Maria Camila Porras Rivera is in her undergraduate program in the south of France when reading a book by Esther Duflo acts as a revelation. 'There was a before and an after!' declares the young Colombian who has only one dream now: to pursue her studies in the same school as the Nobel Prize-winning economist.

Maria Camila Porras Rivera decided to apply to École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay through the second competition (a path accessible to international students) for the double master's in International Economics and Development in the Department of Social Sciences, in partnership with the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and the University of Paris 1. 'When I arrived in France, I had no idea that the ENS was prestigious and challenging to access,' she recalls. 'I just thought it was within one of these higher education institutions that provided Esther Duflo with the intellectual tools to develop her analytical framework: I found it amazing to start from the field, not from an office thousands of kilometers away, to decide on the development policies of countries!'

However, Maria Camila has doubts. She works odd jobs in Aix-en-Provence, knows no one in the Paris region. Her entire family remains in Colombia. What if her abilities are not up to her ambitions? The saying 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' finally prevails over her hesitations. Her application is selected for the examination, which she passes in 2012. 'Everyone has dreams. We limit ourselves because we are afraid, because we don't have money, because we devalue ourselves; we find a thousand reasons not to make decisions,' says the young woman. 'But I can testify today: there are always ways to make it.'

'Any IQ alone cannot guarantee success' 

Entering École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay marks the beginning of a very promising journey but hides many challenges that Maria Camila faces with a lot of hard work and humility. Her status as a normalienne allows her to take out a loan to finance her studies (Note: the Mécénat scholarship program did not exist at that time). 'I learned to constantly push my limits. My teachers at École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay never stopped encouraging me, offering me all possible tools to achieve my goals and overcome my difficulties. This very human approach is unique to École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay. Sharing my doubts with my department head, she reassured me: 'You came from the heart of the Amazon to get here. Of course, it's difficult, but motivation can help achieve goals. Any IQ alone cannot guarantee success.' So, it became a mantra that I repeated to myself constantly!"

 'École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay changed my life, my family’s, and my future children’s' 

Maria Camila gradually gained confidence. 'The multidisciplinary approach at École normale supérieure is very enriching. Our professors were able to master not only an economic phenomenon based on postulates and theory but also illuminate it with sociological and historical angles. Moreover, we had time to exchange with them, in a logic of very appreciable horizontal communication, quite rare in the higher education institutions I have encountered.' She becomes a research assistant at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), co-founded by Esther Duflo – Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019, and also at the Department of Economics at Science Po to work with Julia Cagé, winner of the Best Young Economist Award in 2023. In parallel, she carries out occasional missions for public institutions such as the Ministry of National Education. She landed her first mission at the World Bank, and on the advice of a former PSE student, she decided to go solo as an international consultant in 2020, just before the pandemic. Maria Camila works on diverse topics for major international organizations (United Nations, OECD, World Bank), traveling from Washington to Geneva, and soon to the African continent.

'École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, a powerful vector of social mobility' 

'I am doing what I like today,' says the young consultant. 'I owe this success to École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay, which has been an impressive vector of social mobility. Coming from a family of merchants, with parents who did not have access to higher education, I became a pillar of stability for them: today they have better living conditions. On my side, I had all the motivation, I wanted to give it my all. My project became the project of an entire family, and I share my success with the people who raised me. Remind potential sponsors: allowing young people who have the same background as me to pursue their studies at École normale supérieure changes their lives. Theirs, their families', and their future children's lives.'