How Model UN Helped Me Find the Perfect Major

Deciding what to major in is a very hard decision, especially for people who don’t really know where their passion lies yet. I was one of the many lost people who didn’t know what they want to do in their future. I was thinking about engineering, and maybe international business, but my math grades weren’t the best. I also dreaded doing math.

I’ve been in Model UN since the beginning of my freshman year. At the last conference my school attended during my first year of high school, Northwestern University Model UN conference (NUMUN), I was placed in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as Tajikistan. I had never heard of Tajikistan, and I was worrying about competing against five older teammates, two of whom ended up being the Presidents of my Model UN team in the future. While being very nervous, I started my research for my three topics. To my surprise, Tajikistan was a country that was very passionate about sustainable development, and the health of the environment.

Seeing the approach that was taken by Tajikistan really made me more inquisitive about the environment and what nations have done about it. The committee ended, and I ended having a lot of fun. I hoped to be in UNEP again sometime in my Model UN career.

That opportunity came my sophomore year when my team attended the National High School Model UN conference (NHSMUN). I was placed in UNEP as the Republic of Korea. I was very excited to be in UNEP again, but little did I know that NHSMUN required positions papers for each topic to be the between four to ten pages in length. This was a major struggle, but I sucked it up, and began to research.

Little did I know, I would find myself mesmerized by the complexity of issues like the loss of marine biodiversity, or agriculture’s impact on the environment. I would spend around 3 hours researching every day before the conference, for fun. I never realized how interesting the environment was, and how important it is to the world. Both of my position papers ended up being ten pages each. I received a lot of positive feedback about my research from the Vice Chair.

As someone with ADHD, I usually don’t pay attention to all of the speeches made in committee, but I can say that this was definitely the first time I paid attention to almost all of them.

For the last two years of my Model UN career, I would always place myself in UNEP or any committees that are related to the environment. Whether it is the World Health Organization 2050 or The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, I used MUN to learn more about the environment, its impact on the world we live in, and the creative solutions we can take to fix issues.

Finally, it was fall of 2017 and time for me to apply for colleges. I had to decide what I wanted to major in. That was when I discovered that I wanted to major in Environmental Studies. With every new conference I went to, I got to learn about a new facet of environmental issues. Model UN gave me the opportunity to explore different topics, and find my ultimate passion. It also provided me with some preliminary experience in research and writing in that topic. Armed with these skills, I feel ready for my major, and I am almost certain I want to continue with this topic in the future, all thanks to the committees I excitedly participated in.

I am very happy that I will be attending Gettysburg College, as a member of the class of 2022, where I hope to follow my passion. Despite the stereotype of MUNners being humanities or social sciences majors, you can explore more issues and topic areas than just those types. If you’re an underclassman, or even an upperclassman in high school that has no idea what they want to do in their future, you can find your interests lie in the most interesting of ways through Model UN committees. Trust me.

 

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