Brielle ‘24, Sally ‘25, Kate ‘24, Jade ‘25, Novin ’24, Eden ’25, Talia ‘24 and Wynter ‘25 pose for a photo at a Model United Nations conference at UCLA.
Caitlin Newby
Model United Nations club grew significantly in size this year, and currently has approximately 60 members. The club is led by Charlotte ‘22, Eva ‘22, Nicole ‘23 and Anabel ‘23. The MUN club has been successful this school year, taking home several awards at their last conference at Marymount High School.
The leaders of MUN feel that the club’s success at conferences isn’t solely due to the larger size of the club, but rather a result of the growing excitement and sense of community that results from having more people involved.
“[The bigger size of the club] also grows the community, and when a community grows, people feel supported and can challenge themselves to do better,” Eva said.
Because the club was relatively small prior to this year, the MUN student leaders spent a lot of time teaching new students how to participate in a conference, including going over speeches and position papers—a paper that students write before the conference outlining their country’s stance on an issue.
“I’ve really loved meeting new students so they have a familiar face,” Nicole said.
According to Charlotte, MUN places a large emphasis on having fun, rather than on grades or how many awards a person receives. Charlotte voiced that the virtual conferences MUN attended last school year also helped to grow excitement within the club. While back at in-person conferences this year, the club leaders have tried to maintain a low-stress environment, and have been able to see students who were nervous about attending conferences enjoy themselves.
“We had some conferences last year…which were over Zoom so it was a lot less of an intimidating environment for people to go to conferences so that also grew a lot of excitement for Model UN among the members,” Charlotte said.
As the school year winds down, MUN is working to establish the leadership positions of the club for next year as well as continue to grow their club and increase excitement surrounding all the opportunities MUN has to offer.
“You can shine while writing, but you can also shine while speaking and creating solutions to problems you obviously don’t see in your everyday life,” Eva said.
