My history as an MUNer
My journey first started as a grade 8 student, who was interested in staying in bed and watching YouTube, showing up to my first MUN practice in school after my mom forced me to stay for it. Despite my urge to stay at home, I was an ADHD kid and I found MUN to be boring and complicated during the first initial months. That brings us to my first MUN conference, LISMUN 2014, in which I was representing India under the General Assembly. I was very shy in general, so walking onto the stage and giving a speech gave me anxiety. What gave me more anxiety though was when it was time for questions, a hall consisting of around 60 delegates raised their placards to ask me questions. I stood there in shock and awe.
To this day, I reminisce about that core memory. It is a testament that displays how far I have come as an individual proficient in researching, team building, teaching and communication. Seeing my seniors casually make a resolution of their own and presenting it themselves, motivated me to make my own resolution, which I was able to do in SLMUN 2019 as the United States, and demonstrate that I have the capability to research and draft solutions to a particular problem.
I was able to work with my fellow MUNers to strategize and build a cohesive team effort, whilst prioritizing the individual efforts that a delegate has to put in. A good example of this was in ACMUN 2019 where I coordinated with my two junior delegates on how we should steer committee debate and helped them with their research, regardless of our sleep schedules. Something that warms my heart in MUN is when I am able to teach junior delegates on certain aspects that they can improve on and they tell me of their success stories afterwards. In the most recent conference I took part (LISMUN 2023), where I was a chair of the UNODC, a delegate in that committee later told me about the positive impact of the advice I gave him and that he obtained his first award in another major conference. It continuously gives me the urge to teach more delegates and see them succeed in their endeavors.
And lastly, speaking was something I had ups and downs with. Sometimes I speak too much, whilst not making much sense or too little when it mattered. MUN helped me focus on that problem and I was able to control it much easier than I used to. What makes me love communication is when I get to negotiate with delegates and make deals. An example for this is in OGMUN 2023, in which under a crisis committee, I had an ability to showcase my communication and negotiation skills and I genuinely had a passion for crisis committees. I guess this is why I like mediation so much as well, because what both MUN crisis committees and Mediation have in common, is the ability to communicate, negotiate, understand and compromise whilst being creative with the words you use.
I guess it is no brainer as to why I chose law after doing MUN for sometime :)
Director of Product Management at National Seating & Mobility
2moShould be a great event!