As the lunch bell rang and room C103 filled with prospective Model UN members, eight officers prepared to share their passion and excitement for the club with these new recruits. While the team has officers from different grades with different levels of experience, they share the same level of devotion and enthusiasm. For senior officers, like President Amita Mahajan and Vice President of Finances Sivam Agarwalla, this is the last time they will get to participate. Juniors, such as Vice President of Training Sarah Feng, are halfway through their MUN journey. And sophomore Jiana Tian, in Public Relations, is just starting her MUN officer experience.
El Estoque: What’s your story about joining MUN?
Amita Mahajan: I first got into Model UN in my freshman year when my friends started joining, and I just tagged along ‘cause I thought like “oh, UN sounds kinda cool, I like speaking…” And I saw their website and there were like really pretty suits. Like people dressed in suits and it looked like really interesting. So I got in for I guess kind of silly reasons, but once I joined I fell in love with the club.
Jiana Tian: You know the show “Parks & Rec”? Yeah, so on that show, Leslie did MUN and I was like “oh, that’s so interesting.” And then the first MUN meeting, I walked by it and… I just decided to hop in.
Sarah Feng: I think I kind of joined Model UN by accident in my freshman year, like somebody just shoved a flyer at me during club promo day, but after I came to the meeting I liked the speaking and the topics, so it just clicked.
Sivam Agarwalla: A couple of my friends were in MUN so I heard about the club and that led me to join my junior year. I definitely wasn’t disappointed because the reason that I joined was to take speaking to the next level and experiencing something that wasn’t as structured and as boring as something like speech.
EE: What is your favorite thing about MUN?
AM: Number one the family, because there are definitely people here who I never would have met if I hadn’t joined Model UN. There are people here with so many different interests. Like in the past we’ve had a varsity football player, people who are really into STEM research, cross country runners, all on the same team. You wouldn’t get to know them if it weren’t for a club like Model UN where you work really closely with each other.
EE: What are you looking forward to this year?
AM: I’m looking forward to seeing our school, our delegation as a whole get even stronger because I think that we’ve been getting stronger and stronger each past year.
SF: I’m always looking forward to the new members because it’s really exciting to like watch a bunch of freshmen or even not freshmen get into Model UN.
SA: Seeing how the new people do, like especially the freshmen and sophomores, seeing how they like conferences and seeing how they perform is what I’m really looking forward to, almost as much, even more than conferences [themselves].
