SIMUN

All around I felt that SIMUN was a great experience. It taught me that it is not about being the best every time, but to come up with a resolution that successfully solved the problem. Another thing I learned was that no solution was going to be good for every country. The whole SIMUN process reminded me of a jury in a case. However in this case there was 15 defendants, and when you spoke the other 14 countries were the prosecutors. However when we were in caucus writing resolutions each country was a jury member, if you wanted to pass your resolution all you had to do was persuade enough people (8) and the other caucus group would have no chance. Another reason that SIMUN felt like a court case was because news flashes would come up and your country would do something stupid like torpedo a fishing ship. Then you would have to either defend yourself by bending the truth, or by just admitting.

I was Russia, and in all three scenarios I was involved. Even though I was most involved in the first scenario, I felt that my best day was the third day. I felt this way, because in the first two days I was more hesitant to get on the speaker list. This was probably because I was nervous and every time you spoke it felt like there was at least 5 countries breathing down your back with questions. However on the third day I actually wanted to get on the speakers list, and ask questions. I think that next year already having one year under my belt I will do much better.

I prepared by doing the questions, and researching how each scenario effected my country. This helped me defend myself, however I was missing one aspect. I didn’t have the other countries perspectives. Next year I believe that I should look up allies before SIMUN. That way I will have an idea of which countries will go which way. Also I will be able to formulate better questions, because I will have an idea of their answer. On top of seeing how the scenarios affect other countries and who they will side with I need to do one more important thing that I saw. Even if I am not a big factor in the scenario I need to speak. The delegate of Sudan in my group did this very well, and I believe it is one thing I need to do to improve my SIMUN grade.