Campus Connection

International student gains business know-how amid the bluffs

When UWL student Matias Maffei came to La Crosse from Santiago, Chile, he felt comfortable — geographically speaking. La Crosse’s mini mountains — the bluffs — reminded him of Chile’s rugged mountain ranges. But UW-La Crosse made him feel comfortable in more ways than one. Before coming to UWL for the Master of Business Administration program, Maffei had a real estate career in Chile that was growing increasingly uncomfortable. With gaps in his business know-how, it was difficult to get a raise or apply for higher level management positions. Moreover, the business tasks he was asked to do — from accounting to marketing— required more education than he had acquired from an undergraduate degree. “If someone asked me ‘What is your yearly business plan or projections?,’ I had to Google it and make one,” he says. “Every job I did was always related to business in some way. I couldn’t seem to move forward, and an MBA was a natural next step.” [caption id="attachment_46206" align="alignright" width="400"] Grandad Bluff on the east side of La Crosse creates a beautiful backdrop to the UW-La Crosse campus. The bluffs around the city reminded international student Matias Maffei of his mountainous home in Chile.[/caption] So Maffei, his wife and their three-year old daughter packed up — leaving his real estate career, relatives and home to board a plane for La Crosse in August 2014. The smaller Midwestern city was on his radar after he’d lived in Stevens Point 10 years earlier while earning his undergraduate degree in communication. His mother had earned her degrees at that UW institution as well and worked there. While Stevens Point didn’t have an MBA program, UWL did. Maffei admits it was risky to leave everything behind in Chile to start a new life in a new country. He had some initial doubts about his decision when he started the MBA program two years ago and received a 60 percent on his first statistics test. “I thought maybe I’ve made a huge mistake,” he says. “Maybe I don’t have the brains to do this kind of thing. I’m not a math guy. All of these insecurities started happening. I was scared that I had started a failing process.” But instead of backing out, Maffei took more business classes — eventually taking statistics again. Things got easier. “I think my brain went into survival mode,” he says. “I realized you can learn anything you want to if you really want to.” Today he has two classes to complete before graduation and he’s feeling ready to try the world of business again. “I feel more confident in math-related subjects like accounting, finance and statistics — which I really like — by the way,” he says. “I feel much more secure talking about things I didn’t know much about before. My knowledge is much broader.” Maffei aims to start an international career based in the U.S. He’d love to stay in La Crosse where he’s found the mountain-like landscape and rivers are a beautiful backdrop for raising a family.