OAKMUN

OAKMUN

This was the first MUN I attended as a delegate; but I had been to the Doon School MUN earlier as an observer. So I did feel a little confident and thought as though I knew what I was doing. However participating in an MUN as a delegate and simply watching it are two different things, there are many skills required as delegate and which can only be acquired once we are in the field.

Participating as a delegate for the first time I faced many difficulties and struggled to get them corrected as most of them were the fundamentals that take time to master. The first and key lesson learnt, was to do my research properly. Underestimating the importance of a position paper was a mistake not to be made again as it gives great insight into the country being represented and gives a good deal of confidence walking into the conference.

Confidence is another key aspect of delegation. Putting points across in a heated moderated caucus, making your presence felt by constantly forming allies and putting strong points across, for all the above confidence and a thorough study of your topic is a must. General knowledge and constantly keeping in touch with the world affairs is the only way a good debate or conference can be carried. I learnt this the hard way by embarrassing myself, thank fully not in public. But I was able to put across only a few points only to realize that my fellow delegates were way past that.

Many have the wrong impression of an MUN being a podium just for people to talk, however its 

purpose as stated my MUN’s world-wide is to come up with distinct solutions to current affairs and not just present own views. I observed that in any MUN only a handful of people have the skills to go past the talking stage and come up with pragmatic solutions. This simple reason for their possession of such skills was constantly reading and being aware of the affairs around us and their solutions. These are some of the very important skills that I am grateful for having been introduced to.