3 Ways You Can Associate MUN With Real Life by Meltem ESER

In our modern world, everyone is expected to have a decent or above-average job. This means we will all either work for a company or be in a leading position. This could be in politics but also in any other field of work. I can associate MUN conferences with these business models and this look is very inspiring to me and it has also inspired many others.

When you are attending a conference, whether this is your first conference or if you’re more experienced, you automatically find yourself in a system. Now, if you are part of the organization team as a Director-General, Secretary-General or any other position, you know EXACTLY how this system works. If you are a delegate attending, you are expected to come with the right preparations within the given time, with appropriate clothing. You have to speak in a formal and clear way to give out your message to the other person. You have to be confident with your idea and you have to know some details and data. To me, this already sounds exactly like the profile of a businessperson.

In this article, I will list 3 things about MUN conferences that will give you an idea of what it can bring to you as an individual in real life.

1) BEING AWARE AND OPEN MINDED

MUN conferences are held at high school and university levels. Sometimes they are mixed. You can also join JMUN conferences at an earlier age. So this age group is usually between 15 and 22. This age is a biologically complicated time for the human body and brain. It is developing physically and mentally. Now in this last element, I will be talking about the mental aspects of this life period.

We as young human beings develop our own ideas over time and in this time period we face a lot of changes. In my opinion, MUN conferences are the perfect place to talk about real issues with others of our own age. This is because during debates, you will hear a lot of different views on topics, and this broadens your vision. The people you talk to during committees or coffee breaks might inspire you to do new things. Explore new fields. People might push you to think differently and because in committee sessions you are not yourself but a “delegate”, it is often easier to express regret, apologies but also appreciation and thankfulness.

You also learn to be open and transparent and to comment on things from more than one perspective. It might even take you to a certain point where you cannot decide on what is right or what is wrong because your own thoughts are so different from each other. It could be all of them!

Committee topics are often chosen very precisely according to what is important in the world at that moment. They are always real-world issues of which you might not have heard of before. This will make you realize how complicated our world actually is and how big of an influence your awareness has.

You will find yourself searching for solutions all the time. When someone has an idea of something that is, for example, harmful for the environment or unsustainable, you will warn them and give them another perspective on their plan. These small changes will build up and show us the importance of awareness.

2) RESEARCH

These conferences are a great opportunity for you to have an excuse to do some deep research about specific topics. We as students are often limited to the agenda of our school systems and also have other things we spend time on. If you apply for a conference and get allocated, you immediately are expected to have enough knowledge to be active in the committee with other delegates. The given time for you to do research may vary from conference to conference and also the documents they expect you to write may depend on many factors such as the format of the conference, duration, academic team, etc. Now that you have a reason and a goal for your research, you will be extra motivated to do so.

By doing research you will learn to use very important information sources and new platforms. You might even get in contact with very important facilities to get the extra detailed information. If you are trying to improve your English (or any other language you’re doing research),  going through documents like this is a very effective way to improve your language. If you are already at a higher level with your language skills, you can broaden your knowledge by adding new words to your vocabulary. There are no limits!

And never forget, if you are a delegate, you have the most important role in the committee and the level of fun and productivity will depend on how well prepared and active the delegates are. I often hear from people that they didn’t have a very productive time at the conference, or that everyone was staying silent. This is not what you want. Take the chance and give them to all you got!

3) STRUCTURE AND PLANNING

If you’ve attended a conference you obviously know that there is always a schedule, a given time for you to be present at the conference to get your badges, and also a given time for you to be seated in your committee. This can all be seen as a structure in the business world.

Imagine you are the representative of a company, and you have an important meeting planned. This meeting will also have specific times and rules for you to obey. There might be a dress code, just like in MUN. And everyone will have to stick to those rules for everything to go smoothly. Otherwise, the structure of that meeting might start to lack or even fail.

Another part of the structure is all the work that the organizing team or Academic Team does. These teams are made of different departments which as a whole, can literally be seen as a company. There is always someone who is responsible for all the documents, someone for applications, several people for the committees, people that regulate the venue and entertainment, people responsible for food and drinks and even more elements that vary from conference to conference. All these people have to work very hard to finish their work on time in order to have a successful end result.

Communication plays a very big role here, so if you ever organize anything like a big gathering for people, you have to be very consistent and transparent while you share all the information. Being part of the academic team teaches you the importance of this. But also as a delegate, you need to be open and clear with your ideas so that people can understand and follow what you’re trying to say. The earlier you learn this, the better!

These are my ideas and inspirations on how the MUN mindset works and influences us. I hope you get the idea and that you can implement it in your daily life. I’m sure you’ll discover some things about yourself here and there.

Meltem ESER

The Writer of MUNTurkey.com