On November 15, the Norwin bus departed for the University of Virginia for one of the largest Model UN conferences in the area. About twenty Norwin students participated, some with double delegate status and others having to go alone in their respective rooms.
MUN stands for Model United Nations and is a club that is commonly found in many high schools and colleges. In this club, students can sign up to go to different conferences like at UVA, Pitt, and American. For these conferences, students are given a country in a regular general assembly, while in crisis they can be any person from history, made-up people, or really anyone that might have to use diplomacy. Then the students are given problems for their committees to work through and solve together. Students can win awards by being diplomatic, and well-spoken like a politician would need to be.
From Nov. 15 to Nov. 17 the Norwin students debated, solved problems, and overall had a great time. They started off the weekend on Friday with a long night of conference to get the weekend started. Following the last session of the night, the students still had enough time to hang out and bond on the trip. Saturday would be the last day of committee, and was when the real challenges were. Students endured 7 hours of committee working hard the whole time to try and solve the issues that were plaguing their simulated world.
Over both of the days, the Norwin delegates were able to enjoy the beautiful campus of UVA. Students got to walk around freely and experience some of the college atmosphere. Over the three days that students were there, they got to see all of the historic campus and got to get a feeling for the college life.
Sunday the 17th was the final day of the conference. Delegates did not have to debate any longer but instead got to talk normally with the people in their rooms. After that all the delegates from all the rooms gathered in the theater where the awards ceremony was being held. Going in with high hopes many of the Norwin delegates were disappointed with some of the results. On the bright side, however, Norwin sophomore Carter Kunicky won an honorable mention in his room. Along with that students Preston Montag, and Harneet Singh received verbal commendations from their committees.
While many of the Norwin students were upset with the results they still had a great time. the students were able to grow their diplomatic skills while all at the same time getting to hang out and have fun with their friends.
