So I’m interested in starting a model UN at my school, but I don’t really know much about it. Can someone talk about their model UN experience so I can get an idea of what it would be like? Also how many students should their be? If I get a lot of interest, should I let everyone in or is it generally a smaller (less than 20) club? Also, how do conferences work? I know that before a conference, a country is assigned to the school but does only one student delegate go?
I’ve been in Model UN since the eighth grade and now I’m an executive member in my club (I’m currently a high school freshman). In our school Model UN is really big (we have about 100 members). It’s really fun and a good experience, especially if you like public speaking. It really depends on the school the size of the club; some schools have smaller Model UN clubs.
In Model UN there’s basically all of these procedures you have to follow. You should look these up but you will learn the most when you go to your first conference. In each conference most of the time its around 10-15 delegates coming from our school but it depends per school again.
Each delegate is assigned a country (or sometimes two delegates in the case of a double delegation). You will represent that country in a committee.
If you want I can give you info on a conference our school is hosting later this year. We always like more participation from different schools and this could be your first one. Just reply back and I’ll see what I can do.
@schooliscool123 My school is from northeast Illinois, so I would be looking for an Illinois or Indiana conference. If that fits with your school’s location then sure let me know!
What I would do is see if you can find a few people that would be interested. Then talk to your favorite social studies teacher and see if they would help you with the process of finding a teacher that would be interested in being an adviser.
@schooliscool123 Another thing, what is the hierarchy of your model UN? Are there officer(president VP etc) positions? Or does every grade have a head-delegate?
The MUN at my school is pretty big, more than 100 members, so there are multiple positions. Ours has President, VP, Treasurer, PR, and Secretary positions as well as additional executive officers. Multiple people from a school can go to conferences. There’s a school close by to ours that takes MUN very seriously. Not everyone can join and you have to try out to go to conferences. I’ve been to conferences with students from this school and the delegates are always uncooperative since they want to win awards. In my opinion, you should let everyone join, since a variety of people can gain a great experience and its more fun with diverse ideas.
@LH0723 I’m currently the assistant head of delegate training at my club, which basically means I run meetings and teach people how to do conferences. We have also have a President, Vice President, Business, Head of PR, Delegate Training, and assistant heads to each one of them