MUN

Last week we went on our NHSMUN conference trip to New York City. In addition to having a fantastic time in New York while on this trip, I believe I achieved all my learning outcomes to a degree I didn’t believe was possible. It also provided a valuable learning experience in areas I had not originally thought it would.
On the first day of MUN conferences, I was nervous and quiet because I was new to the surroundings and unfamiliar with many of the procedural aspects of UN style debates. I do believe I learned a valuable lesson through this however. Because I came in on the first day not knowing much about how to debate or what to do in general, I was able to improve my learning by example skills in the process of this conference. In order to learn quickly by example, I decided to take thorough notes the first day of committee meetings, writing down the countries with ideas that I thought that Macedonia would favor. I also deduced a bit of strategy during this session, I took notes on which countries had the strongest speakers in our committee.
On the second day of meetings, I put these notes to good use. I discovered that I had succeeded in improving my ability to learn by example with my efforts the previous night. The second day was much more interesting for me because I started meeting with the countries I had taken notes on the first day. Through these meetings, I progressed further towards my goals of being able to think and articulate on my feet and improving my public speaking. I was surprised that by the end of the day, I had swayed delegates to include my policies in a resolution lead by the delegates from Brazil. Before long I was writing notes, strategizing with Brazil and conveying my ideas as well as the veteran MUNers. This is proof that I had succeeded in improving my ability to learn quickly by example. Also, the fact that I was able to express my opinions in a convincing way to other delegates during unmoderated caucuses proves that I have further progressed towards my goals of being able to think on my feet and speak in public better. As a final affirmation that my progress towards these goals was grand, I was asked to speak in front of the committee without having prepared anything to say. I was the only one working on this resolution with “articulate knowledge on Foreign Direct Investments” as the delegate from Finland put it. This both surprised me and filled me with pride. The fact that I then delivered a successful speech supporting my points just further affirms my progress in accomplishing these goals.
The final day of committee was much less interesting. We had already finished drafting our resolutions and all that was left to be done on this day was voting on ammendments and on the resolutions themselves. I did not have to speak publicly this day but I did continue to use the skills I had both learned and improved throughout the conference. I did continue to make small points during unmoderated caucuses and pass notes to other countries concerning their position on certain clauses of resolutions.
In conclusion, the experience I had at this year’s NHSMUN conference was a very valuable one. I believe I not only succeeded in my goals of becoming a better speaker and becoming better at thinking on my feet, but surpassed my initial expectations. I also learned many other things I had not counted on learning such as improving my ability to learn quickly by example and pick up new skills in an unfamiliar setting such as these committee meetings. I feel that these skills will most certainly benefit me later in life. Perhaps the resolutions I worked on in my ECOFIN committee will help benefit the world some way if real UN delegates draw ideas from our work.