By Wajeeha Kamal
Michigan State University alum Kaavya Ramesh competed on the university’s debate team from 2010 to 2014 and was a four-time qualifier to the National Debate Tournament (NDT).
Ramesh received a bachelor’s degree in international relations and Chinese with an additional major in comparative cultures and politics.
Ramesh, a student in the MSU Honors College, was a 2013 Marshall Scholarship Nominee and recipient of the 2012 U.S. Department Critical Language Scholar in Chinese.
She said her most memorable moment on the team was winning the 2011 Kentucky Round Robin with an undefeated record and being an octofinalist at the 2014 NDT. During her time on the team, Ramesh said her favorite affirmative was nuclear fusion on the 2012-2013 energy topic.
Now, Ramesh is a franchise strategy manager at Disney Princess, Frozen, & Walt Disney Animation at The Walt Disney Company.
Disney has been her dream career for most of her entire life, and now her job involves meeting princesses at Walt Disney World!
From her time on the team, Ramesh learned to logically structure problems and think through possible options, helping her analyze and communicate those things coherently from a business perspective, which she has since applied to her job at The Walt Disney Company.
Debate was a launching point for Ramesh’s first job in Washington, D.C. and a through line in her future endeavors in marketing, completion of an MBA at University of California at Los Angles, and Disney.