By Natalie Tran
Full disclosure: Natalie Tran is a member of FVHS MUN.
This past weekend, the Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) Model United Nations (MUN) team took part in the twenty-ninth annual MUN conference at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), making it their second university conference of the year since BruinMUN at the University of California, Los Angeles. Despite being under the tremendous pressure that comes with UC conferences, the students delegates pushed through and successfully simulated five different United Nation committees.
Freshman Rebecca Do partook in a dual delegate conference with her partner, freshman Leyna Nguyen. Together, the pair presented great team chemistry and were able to gain valuable experience representing Egypt in the General Assembly.
“Wanting to do a partner conference was something I had wanted to do when I first joined this club, and I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to collaborate with other people as well as my partner,” Do said. “In general, I think our conference went well. I came in wanting to learn how to come up with speeches and comments on the fly and I think I left with those abilities refined.”
Like many other students who signed up for MUN, Do was interested in sharpening her public speaking skills, both as a delegate and as a student. According to Do, joining this club has made that possible.
“I’m always looking for new ways to add and to improve my repertoire as a student and I think public speaking is an important skill that I, prior to joining MUN, needed to work on,” Do said. “I’m really looking forward to my future in this club.”
Freshman delegate Emily Medero also participated in this conference, making it the third one in her entire MUN career. Similar to Do and Nguyen, Medero also gained an unforgettable experience at UCIMUN.
“My expectations for this conference was that it was going to be more professional, yet very competitive as it [is] a bigger conference than usual,” Medero said. “It turned out to be quite chaotic and competitive…but in the end, it was a very memorable [one].”
Medero believes that MUN has contributed to her improvement in public-speaking as well as given her the opportunity to meet new people.
“I have been enjoying MUN a lot for the past school year. MUN has given me more confidence, more smooth speaking skills and improvising on the spot,” Medero said. “And [through conferences], I was able to meet people from all over the world…from China, Vietnam, Spain and even Chile.”
Taking home an official award from UCIMUN, co-president junior Judy Liu won a Commendation as Russia in her crisis committee, the Concert of Europe.
“I was hoping that this conference would be fun because as much as I love winning,” Liu said. “And I felt that [my conference] went great! I [loved] being able to talk to people and see what ideas they have to offer on certain topics.”
Having been a member of FVHS MUN since her freshman year, Liu has seen the club thrive and grow more than ever.
“I feel like our club’s performance has definitely grown and improved since I was a freshman,” Liu said. “We’ve grown in members and we’ve also improved when it comes to teaching our members and preparing them for conferences. I just hope that our club can continue to grow because MUN is just so much fun and everyone should get to experience it.”
