Lessons from JHUMUNC 2020

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to have spent four fun, exhausting days staffing the Johns Hopkins Model United Nations Conference (JHUMUNC). This was my second year participating and while it was still packed with a lot of learning curves, it was also my first time knowing my way around the conference, which definitely made for a more memorable time.           

Prior to joining JHUMUNC last year, I had no experience with Model UN. Still, I applied and was placed as a crisis staffer, the same role I was in this year. For those of you that don’t know what that is, it basically means I answer notes from students in the committee I’m assigned to and work with other staffers to create crisis arcs for the students. We do everything from making sure students stay on task by creating time-sensitive scenarios, to carrying out natural disasters, protests, and even the assassinations the committees work on. It’s fun, sometimes draining, but overall a great experience.          

Working with ambitious high schoolers is very rewarding and it taught me a lot, as well. The students keep on your toes, most of them know what they’re doing, and they come super prepared for their committees and they’ll definitely call you out if they notice you’ve made a mistake when answering their questions about the committee. While this forced me to do my research, it also taught me that it’s fine to not know everything and that the students actually enjoyed being able to take the reins of the situation and educate me or others.   

On the Hopkins side of things, the entire conference takes months to plan. Those on sector have been working on it since last semester, and even though there’s many ranks to JHUMUNC, when the conference comes around it truly is on everyone to help make sure it goes smoothly. From doing security shifts to supervising the delegate dance, it’s easy to see how hard it is to manage so many students, even on their best behaviors. A lot can go wrong, although for the most part it doesn’t. Yet, being at the conference this year taught me that even when things do go wrong, at any scale, some teamwork and ingenuity can go a long way.         

Overall, JHUMUNC was a great experience both for what everyone contributed and for what it taught me. While the sleep deprivation and the blisters from running back and forth sometimes made me question why I did it, when I saw how excited the students were to be there and when I saw all the people I worked with happy to be working with them, it really showed me what I was gaining it from the whole experience.