Model United Nations is an academic competition and conference for students to simulate international diplomacy, to learn about international relationship, and the United Nations. Mr. Berg set up the MUN club in the BC program in order to train our communication skills, teamwork and leadership. It attracted us to participate and we especially experience a lot after we attended this first MUN conference.
Actually we planned to go to the Qingdao province for the first conference, however, it was canceled by some emergency. After that, we decided to attend the Ivy League MUN conference held March 10th to March 13th in the Crown Holiday Hotel in PuDong District. It was the first time all members of the MUN club took part in such a formal MUN conference. It was not only for the competition but also a chance to get to know other students from all over the world.
Before the conference, we needed to write a position paper after the delegates gained our country names. It contained the position of each country according to each delegate’s topic. At first, I felt that researching is huge amount of tedious and boring task for us, especially for the country, because it’s quite hard to find. Also, we had to learn about the rule of procedure and the way to write the position paper, working paper and draft resolution. Mr. Berg gave us a lot of advice such as using e-mail to provide some useful information and websites, and checking the position papers to improve them.
After a year of preparation, we finally went to the conference. After the exciting open ceremony, I started my first committee session. My chair was an out-going man and the two assistant directors were lovely students. This made the atmosphere flexible. When we decided which topic to resolve first, I was nervous to describe my own idea because there were so many delegates, so I decided to observe the way they were talking first. My hesitation brought a handicap to me because after the vote, topic A was chosen and it was not so favorable for me because I paid more attention to Topic B. I changed my strategy quickly and wrote my expression immediately. As soon as I restrained the tension, I raised my name card and started my presentation. There were so many people listening and looking at me, it made it more difficult. I thought that I was not as expressive as usual. In order to solve it, I shortened my speech and made it easier for delegates to understand. It seemed to be better than the first speech and motivated me to try more. That was my most meaningful point on the first day.
Everything went successfully after. The secretariat prepared the Panel discussion such as MUN crash course, Ivy League admission, happiness & positive psychology, swing dance, delegate gala and so on. I considered that it was my first time to attend the meeting, so I took part in MUN crash course. Teachers gave us lots of advice and encouraged us to ask questions. It was really useful for me to use these skills in the next committee session. The second and third one focused on cooperating with other delegates and writing the working paper together on the base of expressing my own position. At first, although our bloc’s amount of members was not so large, even sometimes we had dissent, but we still understood each other and stepped back. Also, we spared no effort to persuade others and won their support. Finally, both of the two draft resolutions which came from different blocs passed. It was worth spending so much energy on discussing and writing. Coincidentally, the second day of the MUN meeting was my birthday. When the delegates of SOCHUM noticed that, they all sang the Happy Birthday Song to me. We all felt blessed celebrated this special day. And I was glad that in the end I was awarded the best position paper of the whole SOCHUM committee. The experience of these days will become the motivation to push me to attend more of these kinds of after-school activities.
Anyway, this precious experience not only broadened my mind and improved my linguistic ability but also I made lots of friends. I am looking forward to having more chances to take part in other various events.