This is something that must have been mentioned a lot of times if you are in high school, and that is Model United Nations. Personally, I am literally addicted to this activity, therefore I would like to dedicate this whole post to my personal experience with Model United Nations, as well as giving you guys some tips if you are interested in pursuing this thing!
Alright, so for my personal experience with Model United Nations, I have been participating Model UN for over a year now, and have gone to a lot of conferences (and to brag about it, I have won numerous awards also). So in the place where I live, Hanoi, there are a lot of high schools that hold these events (along with non-profit organizations), hence I have luckily gotten the opportunity to get exposed to a lot of conferences. I have also been a Chair (basically the one that coordinates the conference) for my school’s Model UN conference, and honestly it feels very awesome! Alright, but turning back to where I start my Model UN experience, my first experience is October 2022, when I attend AMUN - basically, a gifted-student high school organized this event, and me and some of my friends (who were very new to Model UN then) decided to apply for this. A part of this decision comes from the part that I was joining my school’s Model UN club then, and as a club we were to attend UNISMUN, which is the Model UN conference hosted by the United Nations International School Hanoi. And since in that conference we were to meet a lot of other kids (especially foreign students) from international schools all over Vietnam, we certain had to be prepared for it - and fortunately, AMUN was hosted a month before UNISMUN, hence we were able to understand Model UN a little bit before attending a very big conference - I’m pretty sure UNISMUN is the biggest Model UN event in Vietnam - there are hundreds of people there, and we can’t just sign up for it since only a limited number of schools are invited to join that conference. So, to be prepared to for AMUN and UNISMUN, the Model UN club has done an activity where more experiences members of the club would teach other students about Model UN - and since I had literally no background nor prior knowledge in this thing, I was one of the students who would rotate around and listened to different people talking about their experience. And to tell the truth, when I first heard about the procedure, I didn’t even understand a single thing! Based on what my friend said, it was literally the most confusing thing that I had ever heard before - with a lot of preparation needed, also. From then, I learned that in your first Model UN conference, don’t expect to win any prizes, since the first event is honestly for understanding what the heck is going on there. But also, because of this, don’t be too worried if you are not able to understand the procedure - just go to a Model UN conference, and at the end of the conference you’ll be able to comprehend what is happening in those few days.
For my first conference, it turned out pretty good, to tell the truth. Of course, I didn’t win any prizes (there were some spectacular people in my committee), but at least from that experience I learned several things - for the “tips” part, I will leave it to the next post. First, Model UN are meant to be fun - it is basically your fault if you’re trying to make things more stressful than you are if you are a high-achiever and want to get those awards. In my first Model UN conferences, I have met some of the best people that I could ever have the opportunity to meet - we basically laughed a lot in the conference. Oh, and AMUN was the first time where I was included in an appreciation post by a stranger that I literally met for only 2 days! Model UN conferences are meant to be the opportunity for you to get exposed to more people, not just those in your school. And from these conferences, chances are you may be able to create friendships that will be beneficial for you later on, even if you decide to get serious with Model UN or not. And plus, Model UN is an excellent place where you can practice your public speaking skills. I know that a lot of you all may not feel very comfortable with this idea, but at the end of the day, public speaking is still something very crucial that will aid a lot in your life, and Model UN can help you with that. Imagine: instead of paying a lot of money to learn debating skills and other stuff, you literally have an amazing opportunity to learn these skills while having to pay a much smaller amount of money!
And for another reason on why you should attend a conference, personally, I really like it when I have a chance to get into different school campuses that I typically don’t have the opportunity to come to! And plus, just the feeling of wearing that suit is so cool! In the next post, I will share some tips for you all if you are intending to join one!
Comments