Model United Nations is a very popular extracurricular activity among high schoolers and college students worldwide. Although it’s time consuming and academically challenging its popularity speaks in favor that almost every college or prep high school have it’s own UN club and the best participants gets the opportunities to attend various Model United Nations.

​

We all know that  every given opportunity to attend something new and extraordinary is new chance to meet different  people with similar interests to ours. As an international event that aims to attract students from all around the world with different backgrounds Model United Nations can be amazing networking opportunity, it can also be pretty tough because MUN events are sometimes too short and formal to make long-lasting friendships. Also, there are a ton of other things which makes Model United Nations good for networking but not so good when it comes to long time friendships because of career driven,ambitious people who are applying as a delegates and team members.  As highly competitive,academically challenging extracurricular activity Model United Nations often looks very good on your college or internship applications and a lot of people comes there because they want to get accepted in prestigious colleges or grad schools. Friendships take backseat when it comes to writing motivational letters or creating portfolios or at this case – making resolution papers for Human Rights or UNEA committees before presenting it in front of the other delegates. Also a lot of people including people I know think that when we are older it’s harder to make long lasting friendships. There are also many researches who calms the same. Office is not the right place for making friends. Your job is the place where you are making results and proving your worth- they say. Personally I think that no matter where you are and no matter what your job is you can make friends. It’s true that in various situations people tend to be more oriented in their own result rather than making connections but I guess that different projects at work can connect you with different people who can become your friends for a long time once when your job is done.

​

When I applied for Model United Nations at my college prep school after I submitted essays about the United Nations which was requirement to admission I wasn’t quite sure what to expect at the event. I didn’t know anyone from the school who was applying to MUN that year because everyone wasbusy with finals and AP classes. Since I went to the event alone, I didn’t knew what to expect. I have to admit, I spent the previous night researching about MUN so I prepared myself a little but still I felt unprepared compared with the ones who were attending similar conferences for a long time.

​

Although I expected an elitistic atmosphere, it didn’t took me a long to find group of people who I can call friends today which (besides completing my IB CAS requirement) was a goal of the whole thing. I  almost couldn’t believe that there’s so much diverse people who shares the same interest about International affairs and related topics.

​

Meeting people from all around the world with different interest and diverse experiences can be really fun. All of those open minded young people had great impact on my life when it comes to making career related choices. As international relations and pre-law double major my positive experience in Model United Nations media team encouraged me to take minor in medias and communication with concentration in press and journalism. With the support of amazing people who I’ve met at “Dialog café” UN project related to young people and its engagement in local communities, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and apply for various volunteering opportunities after I graduated from high school. From teaching English as a foreign language to asylum seekers to advocating for healthier life habits and collaborating with young people from all around the world.  Meeting different kinds of people can make you think more about who you want to become in the future and what you want to achieve. Through Model United Nations I’ve met a lot of people who are my good friends today. Some of them are very successful in their communities and they are making real impact on society.

​

Model United Nations makes all of us way more aware of real world problems and it was excellent opportunity for all of us to become better in every way. For example my friend from Model United Nations currently works for various NGOs in her home town, Fallujah, and educates young girls at the Middle East through volunteering programs while studying at New York University in Abu Dhabi where she is majoring in psychology and pre-med with goal to make healthcare more accessible. Although she wasn’t that much hard working and ambitious during high school  she developed her interest in public service and medicine through Model United Nations as a World Health Organization (WHO) delegate. With help of other members of MUN conferences she had lectures in her mosque (Arabic High school) about the importance of education for girls and drug prevention which helped her to get acceptance letter from NYU Abu Dhabi one of the most prestigious colleges in the Middle East.