SIMUN Blog

I really enjoyed SIMUN. It was a great experience to get to meet other kids in Global Ed and work with them. I also really liked the discussions we had, and trying to find a solution. I was a little nervous the first day, and did not really talk much. It was also hard to talk when my country – Israel – did not take part in some of the crises. Also, I did not really have any close allies in my group, so I had to just sort of “make my own”. As the time went on, I was not as nervous and got more comfortable asking questions, joining the speaker’s list, and using all the different phrases you are supposed to use. In the end, I was looking forward to going and was disappointed when it ended.

We got through three scenarios during the course of SIMUN, doing one each day. We always went right up to the last couple minutes of class to write our recommendations. I feel like I did okay during SIMUN, I did better as time went on for sure; especially on the last day, because my country was directly involved. The Crisis was on the Iran-Israel conflict and nuclear weapons. I had a lot of fun going back and forth speaking, and asking questions with the delegate of Iran.

As for preparation for SIMUN, I did a lot of research, like everyone else. I tried to thoroughly look through as many websites as I could for each research question because I did not want to be the unprepared freshman. I also tried getting information from a variety of sources, to get different sides of each story. It was not as hard to find information on topics, as it was to try and find my country’s personal opinion on that fact. During the time, I tried to pay extra attention the current news involving my country, because if something important happened, I would like to have known about it for discussion. I also talked to older kids in Global Ed, who have gone through SIMUN, to get a feel for what it would be like.

Next year, I really feel like I’ll need to focus on my country’s opinion on the matter. Because the questions we had to answer, were supposed to be answered in our own personal opinion. It was more difficult when we actually got to class and had to suddenly switch from how we felt about the issues, to how our country felt about the issues. Knowing everything I can about a topic would help of course, and the more research I can do the better. I feel like I probably could have done more research, and found out more about each topic, not just to answer the questions we had to turn in; because when news flashes are coming fast, and everyone is trying to caucus, and debate, it is best when you know all the background information there is.