A HEAD FOR NUMBERS
With a passion for music and public speaking, and a deep interest in math and economics, Kaavya Agarwal aspires to become an economist
Kaavya Agarwal is a musician at heart who enjoys singing and playing the piano; she is hoping to complete her Trinity Diplomas in June this year. But the Year 13 student at St Christopher's School in Bahrain also has a passion for Economics, Further Mathematics, Mathematics, and Physics. She is working on an Extended Project Qualification about the justifiability of game theory as an analysis tool of international relations. On weekends, she teaches Math and the Creative Arts to younger students, and is currently hosting her third Public Speaking & Debating Workshop to introduce budding speakers to debating. An aspiring economist, she is heading to the University of Chicago this fall.
Excerpts from an interview: What led you to choose Math and Economics at school?
An analytical person by nature, I love having all necessary facts before me so I can take a proper decision. This is a reason numbers have always appealed to me. Additionally, my skill at problem-solving made picking mathematics as a subject a straightforward choice. As for economics, I was interested in certain areas of the subject such as microeconomic concepts. I could see that the course was taking a more realist approach to economics, so I decided to pursue it.
Tell us about the project you are working on- on game theory as an analysis tool of international relations.
Introduced to game theory in a summer course from UCSC, its mathematical approach to modelling economic interactions between various agents captivated me. For my EPQ project, I wanted to push myself and research something challenging that would expand my knowledge on my current interests, so I decided to commit to game theory. It is traditionally used in a microeconomic setting, but I wanted to go out of my comfort zone so decided to apply it to international relations.
Though it was a long and hard process, my research not only taught me more about game theory, but also deepened my understanding of the many contemporary issues the world is facing and how world leaders are dealing with them. To develop my understanding of game theory in an international environment, I started by using it to analyze the Cold War and the US-China Trade War. Then, I used all the knowledge I gained and tried to apply it to the current Russia-Ukraine conflict to see how well game theory could analyze and predict an ongoing issue. When my project was complete, I found that while game theory can analyze past global events extremely well, it was not a very efficient tool when predicting behaviour due to lack of data.
How do you think this will help you in your future studies?
The first-hand experience of combining information from many fields such as psychology, history, and economics and applying it to a single one like international relations will maximize the impact of the knowledge I will gain at university. Additionally, because I was analyzing international relations with an evaluative perspective, I gained a much more complex and accurate understanding of how the world works and the things that motivate world leaders.
You are also involved in teaching Math to younger students. What are the lessons you learnt from this initiative?
Teaching comes naturally to me as I grew up with a younger sibling to mentor- a reason I decided to tutor younger students.
Towards the end of a tutoring session with one student - which involved exploring new ways to factorise quadratics- I was pleasantly surprised to realise that while I had helped her with her GCSEs, she unknowingly broadened my mathematical knowledge too. I also truly recognized the importance of completely understanding what you are teaching. This way you will ensure that your knowledge encompasses different perspectives.
How has debating helped shape your personality?
I was introduced to debating at my school's debate club in Year 7, six years ago. A shy person, I remember I was extremely nervous when I had to get up on stage to speak. But as I continued debating, my confidence levels improved.
In class, I started doing more presentations and suddenly public speaking stopped becoming something I feared. Without debating, I don't think I would have had the courage to teach people- something I enjoy. Debating has not only given me the confidence and skill to give speeches, but also the strength to pursue what I want because nothing is as scary as it seems.
What is your dream career?
I want to join the Finance industry and work in Portfolio Management.