MUN kind of volunteering experience or not? By Gökçe SİVRİKAYA

Hi guys! In this article, you will be reading upon a controversial topic for the people in MUN society. For this article, our first question is whether the MUN kind of volunteering experience or not?
So I do not know yours but my answer to this question is definitely a yes. Even though you disagree please keep reading to get my explanation. Okay, I think that MUN is a volunteering experience because, -if you have been into a MUN conference you know what I am talking about- when you are in the conference room and wishing that to be somewhere else creates the most boring atmosphere, both for yourself and for the committee (because nobody wants to be in a committee which includes ‘boring’ participants.)

So why anybody would want to get bored? I can never understand this. MUN is a platform where the young people who are worried about the current situation of the world can freely talk. So if you do not meet this requirement, you should not be doing MUN at all. Sorry but not everyone who calls themselves as a MUNer is not a real MUNer. Because participating in a MUN conference –does not matter in the organization or in the academy – comes with huge responsibilities. MUN is like so many things else, if you do not want it truly, from the heart, you cannot be successful at it. (So in this scenario MUN is kind of an addiction, but a sweet one.)But unfortunately, everybody isn’t aware of this fact. Because of this problem, some people argue that Model United Nations concept in Turkey is getting unqualified. So as the members of MUN society we need to get up and defend ourselves against this problem.But how?

This leads us to our second question for this article which is why are we paying a charge for MUN? Well, I guess you all know the answer or at least predict it. Like I have mentioned earlier, attending a conference is not easy but if there is something harder than this, it is making a conference. And obviously, conferences do not occur magically. Or there is not a person who is generous enough to make a free conference. So you should know that when you pay for a conference, the money will be used for:
• Coffee break’s snacks and water
• Conference materials (badge, paper, notebook etc.)
• Deposits
• Social events

So when you think all of these it is not that much?

And last but not least there is one more thing I want to say something about. For this part my question was this ‘what can we achieve thanks to MUN?’ Well I personally think that I have learned so many life lessons from MUN. For example, I have learned that you cannot lean on anybody or I have learned that even the smallest detail has a huge importance. I have learned that everything can change in just one minute based on the decision of a single person. Or I have learned that for making beautiful friendships, you do not have so much time. But except for these life lessons, I have learned to express myself in a formal way. Or, unfortunately in my daily life, I am a very indecisive person but MUN made me learn that I have to decide, mostly in the fastest way possible. Also before I started to my MUN journey, I did not know that how much my English can develop. Besides all of these let’s be realistic for a moment, you should know that you can proudly write your MUN experiences to your CV. Because it really has an impact even on your university applications.

So what are you still waiting for? Let’s go and participate into qualified MUNs. If you do not know which conference to join you can always check the calendar of MUNTurkey.com
I really hope to see you in my next article,

Gökçe SİVRİKAYA

The Writer of MUNTurkey.com

gokce.sivrikaya@munturkey.com