Swiftly following their previous conference at Chantilly High School a week before, McLean’s Model United Nations (McMUN) team is preparing for the Ivy League Model United Nations Conference at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Though the team remains diligent and excited leading into this conference, recovering from their performances and taking on the workload of more committee preparation has taken a great deal of devotion from the members.
“It can be kind of fatiguing to do back to back conferences because it takes a lot of prep work and research,” senior member Elise Newgen said. “Mentally, it can be tolling since you’re working hard toward something for about 8 hours a day.”
Apart from the workload, thoughts about their past performance can be hard to shake off for delegates as they look towards their conference in Philadelphia.
“If you do poorly at the previous conference, it can make you doubt yourself and it can be harder for you to get into the proper mindset,” said senior Lauren Vandivier, secretary general of McLean’s MUN Club. “You just have to remember that the judges are completely different and the people you’ll be in committees with are completely different.”
Looking forward to Philadelphia, the team remains strong and its senior members make efforts to encourage team morale and create a prosperous performing environment for newer and returning members.
“Our team is really excited and we’re all really supportive of one another,” Newgen said. “We’re looking forward to being together and being able to help one another while we’re at the conference.”
With half of the team possessing seniority, the recurring conference will bring with it many traditions that senior members hope to carry on to newer members in McMUN.
“There are activities we do like [going to] the Redding Terminal Market which is fun to go to together to buy food and other things,” Newgen said.
Newer members will also get to enjoy the freedom that comes with travel conferences, as the typical hours-long committees are broken into several days and sessions.
“We get more downtime than a local conference so there’s more breaking up of the time,” Newgen said. “There’s a lot more independence since there’s the luxury of managing your own time.”
Along with exploring their new surroundings in the city, members of McMUN also come together on a more professional level to discuss their progress in committees.
“We have team debriefs after every session at night and we talk about the highs and lows of our committee and give each other advice on the different issues that we’re having,” Vandivier said. “We usually go for breakfast together and get meals together when we’re not with the people from committee.”
Such traditions allow for members – whether new or returning – to bond further with one another and support each other in mutual success throughout the conference with the hopes of winning awards for their team.
With four more conferences and one more travel conference to go for the year, despite the quick turn around that has required members to adjust to their new committees hastily as they look toward their Philadelphia conference, McMUN members are uplifted by the support they offer one another and the experience they can acquire as a whole.
“We feel very confident that we can pick up some awards and we hope it can be a further learning experience for some of our underclassmen and the people we hope to lead the club when we leave,” Vandivier said.
