My placard from my first conference which I have kept to this date.
As I walked into my conference representing the People’s Republic of China in the General Assembly, little did I know that my life was going completely change. At that time, I thought I wanted to pursue engineering in college, but fate or rather participating in Model UN had something else in store for me.
Model UN began for me as just another activity that I could add to my college résumé, but it turned out to become a much more significant part of my life. When I participated for the first time, I realized that I hardly knew about the vast number of international issues transpiring all around me. This motivated me to research further on them, and before I knew it, my knowledge of international affairs grew exponentially.
Meanwhile, my interest in the sciences was replaced by an interest in history and economics. Consequently, I became less interested in pursuing engineering. Soon, this reached a point where I knew that I didn’t want to do engineering, and wanted to study economics and international relations. Half-way through my junior year, this might have seemed like a rather rash decision. However, I believe that this was one of the best decisions I have ever made.
In the end, I dropped out of Physics and took up History, despite not taking it for the past 2 and a half years. This was not possible without a struggle with my parents and my school. But that’s another story. Today, I have been admitted to one of the best universities for my course thanks to Model UN. That too is another story.
I am not discouraging you from pursuing what you are passionate about. All I’m saying is that you need to approach Model UN with an open mind, and it could in fact make a large impact on your life.
