Story by Ada Chen and Daniel Lin

Globalizing the Future

Summer, a time for students to forget about their troubles at school, kick back and get some well-deserved rest, is something every student at MVHS looks forward to after a year of hard work. However, for Model United Nations, a club that discusses important international issues, the start of summer signifies the beginning of something else.

In light of a new school year, the officers at MUN prepared for the months ahead of them during the summer.

The club got a head start by compiling a series of guides for its new members. Senior Mihir Gokhale, the public relations officer, has fixed his eyes on a better public relations campaign to attract more members.

“This year, one of the biggest goals is to have a solid PR campaign to get more members who will better represent MVHS at the many conferences,” Gokhale said. “We’ve worked on advertising campaigns to get new members to join.”

Gokhale recalls the close-knit atmosphere of the club during its summer meetings at the Cupertino Library, which consisted of discussing important international issues for hours on end. The club has also discussed new plans for its future, such as how they could give incoming members more experience and involvement. The new training system utilizes guides created by veterans to help incoming members learn what MUN is and what it takes to excel and be a great delegate at conferences. Gokhale hopes these steps will help new members feel like they fit right in.

One unforgettable experience at meetings, according to Gokhale, is playing a card game called “Pit,” which has no turns and involves calling out numbers and exchanging cards with one another.

“It’s basically a huge shouting match,” Gokhale said.

Despite what may seem like a light environment at MUN, there are setbacks and obstacles at every turn.

“Running a club requires lots of information,” said Gokhale. “Last year we had no PR campaign and our membership base was small compared to what it is now.”

To draw more attention to the club and bring in new members, several history teachers have been asked to promote MUN because Gokhale believes that doing so will foster an interest in international relations, global affairs and the world in general.

With these goals in mind, Gokhale thinks the club’s prospects for success are high. The officers at MUN created the idea of having a theme each month, where the club works together and debates on how to solve the issue pertaining to the theme.

“It’s a really fun way to get new members involved in the club,” said Gokhale.

MUN is also planning to launch their website soon. The club plans to post articles and documents to assist new members, who previously had to learn from experience.

“[Officers come up with these ideas] collaboratively,” Gokhale said, “placing ourselves in the situation of a freshman and thinking of what they want to experience in high school and ways to increase their academic worldview.”

Revolution

In the heart of Silicon Valley, home of the tech giants, there is an emphasis on STEM that the liberal arts seem to lack. However, one club seeks to change that. An uncommon combination of both literature and science, Res Novae stays true to its name — “revolution” in Latin.

“We wanted a club where people could explore their interests in writing and science, but not in a class,” senior Royce Yang said. “People have more freedom, like they can publish once a month, or every semester. As a club, Res Novae is more… freelance.”

Res Novae was born when Yang and senior Sandhya Kannan wanted to combine writing with science and technology, two fields that lay at the heart of Silicon Valley. As a relatively new club, beginning its second year, it still has a lot of room to grow and many avenues to explore. So, Yang and Kannan buckled down and got to work.

In preparation for the new year, they’ve started by looking back at the previous year.

“One of the roadblocks we had last year was that we had all these articles just sitting there because we didn’t have anywhere to put them,” Yang said. “If we wanted to put it in a magazine, we wouldn’t have the money because it was the first year. If we wanted to put it online, the webmaster wasn’t ready with the website.”

However, with a new webmaster in place, Yang hopes that this year will go differently. Building upon systems that other organizations already employ, Res Novae will be using WordPress to create logins for the users.

That’s not the only change coming to Res Novae. Over the summer, the club has connected with organizations to look for guest speakers willing to come to MVHS to talk about their jobs. The professional scientific journalists will arrive come September.

However, one of the major problems that all clubs face is membership. Only a fraction of those who sign up actually participate actively in a club. For Res Novae in particular, part of the problem stemmed from the fact that because the website wasn’t ready for submissions; some members, such as the designers, lacked a platform on which to display their talents. However, Yang was impressed by the sheer number of articles written and by how much assiduous editing was done. Many editors reviewed articles six or seven times; two or three editors continued to work over the summer.

“It’s a club; it’s not a formal class,” Yang said. “So people sometimes sign up and lose interest.”

Looking back on the previous year, Yang recalls a mishap that took place during one of their first fundraisers: selling pearl milk tea. It was only until they began the hectic business of selling the milk teas that they discovered that someone had forgotten to get straws. Since there was little the officers could do about it, buyers ended up poking holes into the cups, trying to make the most of such a novel experience.

“So now, when someone’s picking up PMT, I always text them and say ‘Hey, remember to get straws.’”

“Mock” Mock Trial — Summer Practice

“In the past two years, we’ve never had a team with this many members,” junior Adarsh Parthasarathy said.

Since the time Parthasarathy first joined Mock Trial, the team has doubled in size. An increase in membership is always favorable, but as the co-president of Mock Trial points out, unforeseen complications may also arise. Now, with the bulk of the team composed of seniors, they have to work around the upperclassmen’s schedules, especially during college application season.

However, the Mock Trial team is undaunted by these minor inconveniences. Starting training for its members as early as possible, the team decided to hold a summer trial to prepare members for the coming year. With this unprecedented opportunity to run through a practice round of a case, new additions on the team were better able to get a feel for Mock Trial.

This year, one of the more drastic new changes coming to Mock Trial is the addition of a third coach. Previously there had been two coaches on deck: Jim Torre, a retired lawyer, and Tiffany Zendejas, a law student. Ironically, the new coach, a classmate of the law student, is also named Tiffany — Tiffany Urhi Chu.

For Mock Trial, last year didn’t go as smoothly as expected by the officers. Right before school came to a close, the team held a workshop to attract new members in anticipation for the coming year.

“We [the co-presidents] got so caught up in the prep process that we forgot to explain to the rest of the team what was going on,” Parthasarathy said. “We went in really excited for this and then realized that no one really knew what to do.”

The takeaway from this learning opportunity? Communicating effectively with team members as well as coaches would prevent many situations, such as the one above, from occurring. Because the coaches clearly have a lot of experience in the field of law, Parthasarathy resolves to turn to them more often for advice in the year to come.