By Natalie Tran
Full disclosure: Natalie Tran is co-president of the FVHS Model United Nations club.
This past weekend, the Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) Model United Nations (MUN) veteran members made yet another successful debut at the annual Cerritos High School MUN conference, this year especially being in-person.
After a whole year of virtual conferences, some of the veteran members weren’t able to experience the wonders and thrills of the in-person conferences.
Among the veterans were junior Chloe Cheng and sophomore Emily Medero, both of whom were new to the in-person setting. Despite the seemingly intimidating transition, the first-timers made it out with an even greater passion for MUN.
“This was my first in-person conference since I joined MUN last year, when all of our conferences were virtual, so I was really just hoping that I’d be able to do well given that,” Cheng said. “As a result, I was kind of nervous going into Cerritos MUN, but as the day went on all of my worries went away. The experience was just so engaging and fun!”
As Cheng mentioned, engagement is one of the main aspects special to an in-person conference.
Sure, virtual conferences follow the same procedure in that delegates would have to debate and work towards passing a resolution, but over Zoom, that is a recipe for awkwardness.
With the physicality of in-person conferences, delegates are free to roam around the classroom and verbally communicate with other delegates within their committee, allowing for greater community and connection.
Cheng, who represented Iraq in the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, won an Award of Excellence for her performance. However, to Cheng, the greatest reward was being able to meet new people and participate in the debate itself.
“The main thing that I took away from this conference was that just participating a lot and really just being completely involved during the whole day made the conference just that much more exciting,” Cheng said. “I also made new friends and I learned to just have fun during the day and learn more about all the other delegates. I’m really excited for this upcoming MUN season [and] to see what this year will hold!”
In addition to the new in-person delegates, FVHS MUN also had some returning veterans who had competed in-person before. Among them were juniors Nylah Mirshafiei and Aditi Sharma, both of whom were elated when hearing that FVHS MUN would be returning in-person.
“I loved going back to in-person conferences. You get the full experience and you can make friends from different schools and make connections,” Mirshafiei said. “It’s even better, as a club, because we get to eat lunch together and tell stories about how our committee is going.”
Mirshafiei, who was awarded for her efforts representing Iraq in UNICEF, also enjoyed her experience at Cerritos as she was able to improve her public speaking and collaborate with others, both of which are skills MUN helps foster.
“My hopes for this conference was just to get back into the habit of public speaking and going to these events in general,” Mirshafiei said. “Personally, I need to work on improving my speeches…but overall, I got to get back to debating in person and [I] made some new friends so it was a great conference! Our club did an amazing job this weekend and there is without a doubt that this year will be a great one.”
Co-president junior Judy Liu is very proud of the delegation’s performance and is pumped for the upcoming MUN season.
“I think the delegates did amazing, especially for the first in-person conference of the year,” Liu said. “I am so excited about the upcoming season. Not only are we in person, but we’ve gotten a lot more members and hopefully, we’ll be able to participate in all of our usual conferences and a few more with a larger delegation. I can’t wait to experience this MUN season with all of our new members!”
