Tips and tricks to achieve CAS: Creativity, by Yutong

Hi! I am Yutong and I will be introducing how I completed my first MUN conference in this article. 

In December 2023, I attended a Model United Nations conference in Bratislava, this conference was organized by a high school in Bratislava. It was my first MUN conference with no knowledge of what exactly is MUN. So what is MUN? 

MUN – Model United Nations, is a simulation under the United Nations for educational purposes including improving debate skills, communication skills, and problem solving. As well as learning about diplomatic problem, addressing global issues and political situations around the globe. 

I did not know much about politics therefore I felt really unprepared for the conference, but I just picked up my courage and went for the event. Usually, the conference will take 3 days up to a week, so before wanting to attend an MUN conference, think about whether it would take too much of the school days. 

Firstly, all of the MUN conferences will require for “Position Paper” in advance, which mostly consists of three parts –– introduction of your position (which country are you representing, and the political position of the country, etc.), arguments regarding to the given topic, and a brief conclusion that not only summarize your paper, but also emphasize the thesis of the conference. After submitting the position paper, you need to quickly think about the opening speech that your chairs will certainly expect to hear from you. Which, is something very similar to the position paper, but a compressed version because you will have a maximum 2 minutes to state you position and argument. 

The following days will be easier but simultaneously more stressful because you will not necessarily present anything of your own. However, it is the time to draft a resolution to the given issue with your committee. I was in the human rights committee and we had to address a resolution to the topic of “Finding a solution to the abuse of crowd control weapons during protest”. We tried to create as many solutions for the topic as possible, such as non-lethal weapons, international support, and training programs, etc. It took a whole day of 8 hours, but keep in mind that the MUN conference surely will include food, snacks, and beverages. 

Finally, we have chosen the delegate that will present on the last day from our committee, the delegate will be answering questions regarding our resolution and people will vote to agree or disagree with the resolution. Although our resolution did not pass, we still felt very proud and glad we accomplished this major event as for most of us it was the first time.