Jefferson’s Model United Nations (MUN) club competed at Ivy League Model United Nations Conferences (ILMUNC) from Thursday, Jan. 25 to Sunday, Jan. 28 at the Marriott Philadelphia Hotel. ILMUNC was hosted by students from the University of Pennsylvania, and at the competition, Jefferson MUN received second place, also known as “Outstanding Large.”
This event was one of the biggest conferences MUN students could participate in this year, with delegates attending from all over the world. At Jefferson, it’s regarded as a flagship conference—one that is highly successful, with many speakers, sponsors, and opportunities to establish connections.
“This is TJMUN’s flagship conference, so we send our best delegates to go here and [we] always try to win,” sophomore Amrit Singh said. “Other conferences are more open and fun in a sense.”
To be eligible to participate in ILMUNC, students had to meet a certain requirement.
“The requirement for attending this conference would be having attended a conference in the past,” senior senator Naisha Patel said. “We’ve had three conferences up till now, and you’d have to have attended at least one of those.”
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Beyond attendance, performance in prior conferences was also key to determining whether or not a student was eligible to compete.
“Also, there [were] two mock conferences that [a student] should do, and [the secretaries] decide based on [their] performance in the mock conferences,” Patel said. “If we believe that [they] would be a good delegate, we would select [them] for this conference.”
However, the preparation did not stop there. Students were encouraged to study on their own and also with the upperclassmen members of the club.
“To prepare for this conference, we had training every day at school,” Patel said. “We held workshops after school—two in the span of two weeks—leading up to the date. Every single upperclassman was there for the underclassmen and other novices.”
Students in the MUN community often experience a great amount of stress near competition time, but these workshops offered a greater sense of camaraderie.
“It was really fun to not only bond but to also have this culture where everyone is asking everyone for help,” Patel said.
At the conference, students not only competed, but were able to relax with their fellow delegates [through activities such as exploring the city and bowling].
“In addition to being in a new city and gaining new experiences, there were also really fun things that ILMUNC as a conference holds, like Deldance, which is a fun after-conference party,” Patel said. “There were a lot of really fun activities, like bowling and much more, in which everyone in our school [participated] in.”
The conference was held right after the end of the first semester on Thursday, Jan. 25, so students were able to focus solely on the conference itself.
“There were no scheduling conflicts that went on when planning this conference just because it was the end of the semester,” Patel said. “That was a really nice way to put our all into this conference because once tests were over we studied and prepared for this conference.”
The MUN club is always seeking more students with interest in global affairs and public speaking.
“ILMUNC this year was one of the best parts of my year, so I would 100% recommend people to try out MUN and do their best, regardless of whether or not they make ILMUNC or not,” Singh said. ”The club is very inclusive and a real family.”
ILMUNC was an opportunity for students to strive for the best, learn from valuable mistakes, and overall, be part of a greater community.
“This conference is different from the other ones because we take this one the most seriously,” Patel said. “It’s nice to have these experiences together to grow as a club and understand each other as time goes on.”