My experience at MUN

The word Mun is quite prevalent and prominent in today’s world. Most of us have come across this word, but what does it mean?

MUN stands for Model United Nation which is a simulation of the United Nation and follows the Rules of Procedure of the United Nation. The participants of MUN are called delegates who speak over an agenda which is generally a prevalent and burning problem either globally experienced or pervasive in the context of a particular country. For instance, ‘Terrorism in the Mediterranean Region of the world’ can be one agenda in the prospect of world or ‘Is Abrogation of Article 370 a boon or bane for India?’ in the context of India. The delegates represent a particular country or a political leader and lay down their views regarding the agenda strictly following their country’s foreign policy and party policy. There is a continuous debate in a closed room for 2-3 days comprising of different formats of debate like the Formal debate which consists of an Opening Statement and General Speaker List(GSL). On the other hand, the informal debate consists of Zero hour, Private moderated session, Public Unmoderated session and many more. Further, there is a session known as Press Session where the reporters get a chance to ask delegates questions or views related to their speech. Finally, there is a session known as Documentation Session where the documentation of the debate is done which can be in the form of a ‘Press Release’, ’Party Communique’ or ’Draft Resolution’. The solution and the measures which can diminish the problem as mentioned in the agenda are laid down in the form of any kind of documentation. The main idea of MUN is to come up with some fruitful solution about the problem described in the agenda. While this is not a comprehensive account of my experience at the MUN, yet this definitely allows for the picturisation of what an MUN looks like.

Speaking of my experience at MUN, I need to travel back 2 years. There is a fantasy of getting good snaps at MUN, even I got tempted for this and thought of participating in my first MUN Conference which was ‘SRMIEC’ without having any knowledge of MUN. So on the first day of the conference, I went without having any research or any documents related to the agenda. I had no idea even about the Background Guide which is released by the committee members which gives delegates a glimpse about the agenda with special emphasis of the subtopics which will be covered in the 2-3 days of the conference. As the committee started I tried to listen to fellow delegates very carefully, and also my executive board members which ultimately led me to have a general view of the rules of procedure followed in my committee. So that laid the foundation stone of my journey towards MUN. I can accept easily that my first MUN speech was neither fruitful nor could I bring out essential points in the table yet the conference gave me the courage and also the urge to participate in more MUNs in due course of time. Although my main motive of joining that conference was to get captured in candid snaps but at the end, I came out with the view it’s not just the snap which one can get through MUN, The most important thing is the amount of knowledge which a delegate can gain from his fellow delegates and Executive Board Members. I kept Learning step by step by doing more and more MUNs and now I stand at having an experience of 6 MUNs with 3 awards in my bag. Now I try to get a basic idea of the agenda at least 4-5 days before by reading the Background guide at least a couple of times. I try to prepare some basic speeches which can be helpful in due course of time by doing vigorous research related to the agenda and my country or party policy. The speeches which comprise of my views related to the agenda can be changed and modified to some extent which could be finally used in different forms of debate in that conference. As I started gaining more and more experience, It made me realize many vital things. The first thing which I want to emphasise is that it’s not just the speaking skill which can help you excel in the field of MUN but also the Listening Skill. I have seen many delegates who are exceptionally good at speaking and also in their body language but due to having bad Listening skill they could not counter-attack the points laid down by other delegates. Hence they finally lose their award. If you are a good listener then you can easily lay down other points and can contradict it easily with new points which generally increase your chance to win an award. It’s not just that, being a good listener helps you in the field of MUN, but also in one’s academic career no matter what path one follows.

Another quality which I have gained only because of MUN is having the confidence to speak before people. Before trying my hand at MUNing I was a person who used to fear a lot to do public speaking. I couldn’t even utter a line in front of people, I used to stammer a lot but now I can say that my confidence level has boosted up to some extent.

As above, I listed down that one's knowledge increases intensively with each MUN because of the intense debate between fellow delegates. Intense Debate takes the committee in a correct direction which ultimately leads to discussing each vital topic of the agenda. Next, I want to talk about the Executive Board members. When I was a first-timer, I faced great difficulties in understanding the rules and procedures but I have seen and experienced that Executive Board members take special care for the first-timers in MUN. Sometimes we as a delegation i.e. as a team go to MUNs at other colleges. So whenever we participate as a delegation, what I saw is that the amount of efforts which our seniors and experienced Students give for mentoring the whole delegation is truly unbelievable and hence I can say that also because of them one can gain knowledge, experience and many more things.

As now I have a little bit experience it’s not that I am utilizing it for my own benefits only. Whenever I come across my friends or juniors who have not had any experience at MUN, I try to make them understand about the rules and procedures of MUN, tell them to participate, helps them by explaining the rules and procedures and now I see that many of my friends have also started participating in MUNs.

In the end, I want to say this MUN has helped me a lot in many things and I am sure that It will help everyone who does MUN, and it’s never late to gain skills so I urge everyone to participate in more and more MUNs and make it more popular day by day.