Twenty four delegates from Northwood MUN traveled to Boston to participate in a three-day international conference from Feb. 2-4.
In the advanced committees, secretary general junior Arjun Patel received Best Delegate, junior Aishwarya Ramasubramanian received an honorable mention and outreach director junior Anthony Park received a verbal commendation.
In the general committees, junior Jamie Fry and sophomore Lauren Low received honorable mentions and senior Matthew Lin and sophomore Benjamin Lin received verbal commendations.
“The Boston trip was a highly educational experience for our team,” travel conference coordinator junior Viraj Kadakia said. “Through MUN, we learn diplomacy and public speaking skills, which helps us grow as individuals.”
Over a wide range of committees, Northwood delegates represented different countries within the United Nations and were tasked with passing resolutions to solve real-world issues through collaboration and healthy debate alongside their peers at the conference.
BosMUN featured more specific committee types and a variety of topics that high school teams typically do not encounter at its typical conferences. Aside from the standard general assemblies with one delegate representative per country, categories included dual delegate, where students worked with a partner in the same country and a midnight crisis committee, where the crisis staff called select competitors to an extra debate session.
“Typically, the conferences that we go to here are all local,” Patel said. “This was a great opportunity to participate and compete at a higher level, and it is remarkable to see how much the club has grown over the past three years.”
Northwood’s MUN team temporarily stopped attending travel conferences following the pandemic. The team has since regrouped and improved its competitive team by restarting the MUN class. Traveling additionally allowed the team to an opportunity to visit historical sites in Massachusetts such as the USS Constitution, the Freedom Trail and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
“I liked being able to connect with the team and travel with friends,” Low said. “The experience was fun and we got to see a lot of Boston monuments and learn a lot about MUN while prepping.”
Northwood MUN will host their annual conference in April and is looking to have nearly 200 delegates across Orange County high schools in attendance. Prospective team members should follow MUN @nhsmunc on Instagram for more updates and attend weekly Monday meetings in Room 1101 during lunch.