On February 27-28, Model UN held its annual conference. Participants from Fairfax, Prince William, Loudon schools attended, as well as independent delegates who are individual Model UN participants whose school didn’t come. Model UN is an academic club that looks at international relations and public policy that affects people around the world. Students get together to discuss and argue about bills, ideas, funding, etc, and create resolutions for these topics. Sometimes a little roleplaying is involved, where one student may be a political leader or country and another is a different one, and they discuss/debate on current or past issues. Model UN students believe that Model UN also allows for one to make connections, networking with others while improving your public speaking.
“…A lot of it is just like getting out of your comfort zone, learning how to talk to people…” card month conference chair Hirah Contractor said.
The conference itself was broken up to 6 different subcommittees where students discussed a variety of topics. This year the topics ranged from global issues like the housing crisis and public health to slightly fictional topics such as the UFC. Instead of focusing on who could be the loudest in the room, the conference focused on diplomacy and picked awards on how diplomatic and well-spoken one could be. If you are interested in law, public policy, education, human rights, equity issues, international relations, diplomacy or just want to get out of your comfort zone, meet new people from different schools, or improve your public speaking, Model UN is the club for you.
