The Harvard Model of United Nations Conference is a prestigious event that brings together thousands of students from all over the world. Model UN, itself, is a program where students are given a certain country and their values must reflect their respective counties. They will debate certain issues and come up with solutions diplomatically. At Harvard, the best and most competitive students from high schools and Harvard are thrown together in a conference room, each competing for recognition and awards. At Hingham High School, twenty-five students were chosen to represent Hingham and their selected nations.
To prepare for the conference, members who were attending needed to fill out various forms and come to school on January 30th ready to head over to Harvard. Each student is assigned a country they will represent ahead of time, and they must prepare a brief opening paper. This paper consists of their countries beliefs, policies, and the solution they plan on using to fix the problem they are given during the debate. On top of that, students complete an immense amount of research about their country so they know the proper background information.
The policies of the conference are strict but are also flexible enough for student’s lives. Members attending can be excused off campus for a sports event or a musical recital with their parents approval. This makes the whole experience easier for all students who are able to to compete and creates the perfect environment for the delegates.
The great appeal to the Harvard conference is the amount of new people that come from different backgrounds that students will meet. Audrey Smith, a student from Hingham High School attending the trip, has already met people from other countries. She elaborates, “I have already met many of the delegates before our first meeting from Lebanon and Brazil and I am excited to meet more!” Students who debate in the conference get to meet other students who want to learn similar things. It is a great experience to not only go to Harvard but to learn more about other cultures and to unite the nations in the real world.
The actual debates that take place during the event are the most exhilarating part. When all the brightest young minds around the world who participate in Model UN get together and discuss real life issues countries face and resolve them.
During the first debate between the delegates, the topic was linguistic minorities. Caroline Sullivan is a senior at Hingham High and she described, “I was in the Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee and it was a huge group.” She also relates to Audrey Smith and the act of meeting, “…so many delegates from all over the world, and everyone was super passionate in their speeches.” In the conference she and her group mates used their research and created a solution their country would use to fix surrounding problems of linguistic minorities.
With the massive amount of students in the conference, sometimes it is hard to get a word in, but since the debate is organized by officials, each student should be able to speak a few times at least. More new topics will continue over the last few days and the delegates will continue to learn about other countries, students, and the world of debating in Model UN.
The Harvard Model of United Nations Conferences is the oldest and most esteemed event Model UN students can compete in, and it is already wrapping up. There is still more to come about the debate and awards will be given out to certain delegates in the upcoming days. This was a great opportunity that Hingham High School students got to experience and hopefully the school will continue the tradition for years to come.
