By Justin Hsieh, Staff Writer
This weekend, the Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) Model United Nations team competed at the 26th annual MUN conference at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), giving a strong performance at their second competition of the year. Although MUN at UCLA (BruinMUN) is one of the largest MUN conferences in the nation, attended by over 1,500 delegates, all fifteen of the FVHS delegates who attended the conference were able to hold up under pressure in their eight different simulated United Nations committees.
“Starting off my MUN experience at BruinMUN was definitely nerve-wracking,” said freshman Cate Meister, who represented the United States in the United Nations Children’s Fund. “I had only a vague idea of what the conference would be like, and the sheer size of the conference was overwhelming at first. Although I did not speak as much as I would have liked to, I learned a lot about the way that MUN runs and what strategies work and do not work. I am looking forward to continuing to improve my speaking skills and learn from my mistakes.”
For Meister and four other delegates, BruinMUN was the first conference they had ever attended and was, thus, a baptism-by-fire introduction to the competitive MUN world. Despite the intimidating environment, all of these delegates were able to handle their committees well and came out of the event confident and experienced.
“Even though we did not win anything, I definitely feel the information and various things I learned about the world and UN made it very interesting. I think now that I have an idea of how conferences [are] like, I definitely think I have a better chance of winning next time,” said sophomore Devan Pathak, who represented Bulgaria in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Two of the delegates, sophomore Sarah Jang and senior Anosha Sakhawat, both won official verbal commendations in their committee, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Jang and Sakhawat were representing Guatemala.
“Personally, at UCLA, I felt my performance significantly improved. I made important remarks, and I contributed a lot to making [a] resolution, which ultimately was successful. I was proud of myself and my partner. I didn’t realize what an impact UCLA had on my MUN experience, and, as I left the campus, I looked back and realized that it was the last time. It was hard to say goodbye, since [BruinMUN] has been one of the highlights and honors in my life,” said Sakhawat.
The conference at BruinMUN was especially important for the FVHS MUN team, as it followed a year of relative stagnation in the program. The team brought twice as many delegates to UCLA as last year, the majority of whom were first-year delegates.
“As one of the most impressive universities in the world, UCLA’s Model UN always provides a great experience for all delegates, which I believe each one of our members got. All 15 of our delegates that attended gained invaluable experiences and information for the framework of future conferences,” said President Jeffrey Carr. “Based on our performance, I can say with confidence that the Model UN program [at FVHS] has an extremely bright future. As one of the top conferences of the year, BruinMUN provided challenging and high-level competition, and I saw every delegate give their best.”
The team was led at the conference by new advisor Kelly Ducat, who accompanied the delegates to her first MUN conference since her own high school MUN career. Ducat took MUN over from David Uribe, the previous advisor who led a highly successful FVHS MUN program for over a decade. Despite setbacks for the club in recent years, Ducat hopes to revitalize MUN and takes BruinMUN as an encouraging first sign.
“I was able to see almost all of our delegates participate, and I am so impressed,” said Ducat. “These students were clearly researched and prepared, worked well in their partnerships, and overcame obstacles of working as a single member in a pairs conference. I was proud to watch delegates evolve from nervous first-time participants to confident delegates. We have a heavy population of young delegates who are capable and eager to grow, [and] we are excited for our conference at Mira Costa [High School] next.”
