Though most students had a long President’s Day weekend last week, students from Model United Nations (or MUN) spent the majority of the weekend working hard to pass legislation and form blocks at the North American Invitational Model United Nations conference (known as NAIMUN). NAIMUN, which is hosted by Georgetown University, is attended by 3,200+ students from around the world each year, making it the one of the largest conferences in the D.C. area.

NAIMUN was MUN’s last conference of the year, and proved to be a good last (and in some cases, first) conference for the seniors.

“It’s very bittersweet because I’m so glad I was able to go, but also sad there’s not another event I can go to really,” said senior Liz Brodie. NAIMUN was Brodie’s first conference. “I’m looking forward to still being involved in the club and potentially doing MUN things in college.”

Brodie described her impressions of NAIMUN.

“I started off big with NAIMUN. I didn’t have many expectations since I hadn’t had any other experiences, I thought it’d be fun and challenging and just overall interesting. Whatever thoughts I had, NAIMUN definitely surpassed them. It was so much and fun to learn how MUN works and then try and come up with a solution to my topic. The whole weekend was very tiring and crazy, but super amazing.”

As a first conference, NAIMUN is definitely a big commitment, but everything got easier as Brodie learned the ropes.

“I think the hardest part was figuring out how everything works since I’d never had any MUN experience or preparation. We had to write position papers, working papers, draft resolutions, amendments, and finally a final resolution and I was learning as I went on how to do that,” she said. “It was also a bit of a learning curve to figure out how to get my country’s voice heard and using the speaking time effectively.”

For sophomore Aanya Jhaveri, who went to other smaller MUN conferences this year, NAIMUN was also a new experience.

“This was my first NAIMUN experience…Honestly I didn’t really know what to expect [for NAIMUN],” Jhaveri said. “I knew it was a huge conference so I was pretty nervous, especially since I was in a double delegation [or, a delegation meant for two delegates from the same country to work together as partners] without a partner. Compared to my fears of messing up in front of the whole committee, it was actually really fun and I met some really cool people in my committee.”

Though NAIMUN was the year’s last conference, MUN is still looking forwards to meetings, holding an internal conference, and holding elections this year.
 

 “It’s a welcoming fun group of people who are having a good time while working on challenging world issues,” said Brodie. “I would for sure recommend people join the club, especially if you think you want to do something related to international relations later in life.”