Fort Bend ISD

Student Bio

During her time in high school, Bhaavya was involved in her school’s DECA chapter as VP of Operations, Spanish NHS as co-President, Debate, NHS, and visited China as an FBISD Global Initiative Ambassador in 2018. She has been training in the classical Indian artform of Kathak for 10+ years. She has been recognized as National Merit Commended, an AP Scholar with Distinction, Academic Excellence, and for her 2019 FBISD FilmFest submission.

She will be attending the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin in the fall. She plans to double major in Finance and Accounting, with possibly an Asian Studies or language minor. She has aspirations to work abroad long-term in the future before settling in a position to spread financial literacy in low-income areas. 

During her time in the GT Mentorship Program, Bhaavya was mentored at the Houston Federal Credit Union. She spent time under the guidance of the kind HFCU employees, including the Senior VP of Marketin,g Mrs. Rene Cannavo; Financial Counselor, Mrs. Zulika Diaz; and Ms. Ana Salas. Her time at HFCU has helped her appreciate the work credit unions, which are non-profits, do for their members, and showed her another avenue through which she can pursue her long-term goal of increasing access to financial resources for the underserved.

She would like to thank Mrs. Nancy Bryant and the 2019-2020 GT Mentorship class for such a memorable journey together, and hopes everyone keeps in touch!

Mentor Business

Houston Federal Credit Union

Mentors

Rene Cannavo

Zulika Diaz

Houston Federal Credit Union provides the full range of financial products and services that members demand and desire, while providing exceptional service that is second to none. The Mission of Houston Federal Credit Union is to “Be our members’ advocate by helping them achieve their dreams with personalized financial solutions”. 

Houston Federal Credit Union

Project Abstract

Credit scores are extremely important to the financial security of an individual. It is because credit scores are often used to determine the financial health of a person that this topic was researched; credit scores can impact your ability to borrow, make big ticket expenses, and even find a job. While there are many models that calculate credit scores, the FICO scoring system was used for the purposes of this presentation. The presentation will prove that credit scores and loan interest rates are inversely related in the case of three categories; raising your FICO score by a mere 50 points can led to lower interest rates for your auto, home, and personal loans. This was determined by comparing how six different credit scores affected the interest rates and/or total interest paid for three categories of purchases using figures provided by online simulators. This presentation will also explain the categories that are factored into calculating credit scores to provide an explanation as to how one can improve or justify their score.