Not many people know what Model UN is (to be referred to as MUN for simplicity’s sake.) They get that it has to do with government, but past that, unless you know someone in it or have had experience in it, it would be a safe bet that the average high schooler does not know the full extent of what MUN does.
To begin, MUN stands for Model United Nations, and as the name suggests, it is a model of how the United Nations works. We discuss many different topics, and possible solutions to these topics. For example, we discussed epidemics in third world countries, from the viewpoint of a first world country. We then broke up into groups, depending on which resolution we thought would work the best. A paper was then written for each “bloc” and was submitted to get passed.
This is very similar to what happens in Chicago, where the team went to this year, as well as the years in the past. The difference is that in Chicago, you are assigned a partner, given a country (your dear author was Ethiopia) and given a committee and a topic paper to read and do lots of research on. As a delegate in Chicago, I was on the International Atomic Energy Agency committee, discussing the nonproliferation of atomic weapons. Basically, that means that the IAEA talked about stopping the growth of nuclear arsenals.
Reflecting back on what MUN means to me as the season draws to a close for the year, it gave me something to look forward to every week. I’m not the athletic type, and could never find any fun clubs to join that I was genuinely interested in. MUN provided me with a sense of family and belonging. I learned tools to research and ways to calm situations so I could be in control of them. I learned the importance of communication, and above all, I learned the importance of standing up for what I believe in. Chicago changed how I view the world, and those living within it.