The SIS MUN club embarked for Vietnam earlier this week. For the first two days, the delegates visited numerous historical sites, deepening their understanding of Vietnam as a Less Economically Developed Country (LEDC) and their experience as the former French Indochina.  The delegates spent the remainder of the five-day trip in their UNISMUN committee sessions, debating on international issues like cyber security and debt relief for underdeveloped countries.

UNISMUN Hanoi is the biggest in-person MUN conference in all of Asia and boasts 12 committees and over 600 delegations. Each individual committee had an average of 50 delegates, making UNISMUN both one of the largest and most competitive conferences in the world.

“UNISMUN Hanoi is definitely one of the largest MUN conferences I’ve been to,” William Byungwook Park (10), SIS MUN club member, said. “So many people from all different backgrounds come to Vietnam just for this conference; it seems like UNISMUN does a phenomenal job in coalescing all delegations and uniting them under the theme of debate.”

The practice conducted during weekly meetings seemed to play an integral role in the overall performance of SIS students in their respective committees. The majority of SIS delegates were awarded the “Best Delegate” prize in recognition of their diplomatic prowesses. Constant impromptu activities and main submitter speech preparation aptly prepared the debaters for every possible scenario in the committee room.

Compared to the results from domestic MUN competitions like SEOMUN, which was hosted by SIS this year, UNISMUN saw much more success from SIS students on an individual level. When strictly comparing the number of participants, UNISMUN boasts almost double the number of delegations of SEOMUN. In this light, the overall achievement of SIS delegates in Vietnam is mostly attributed to the rigorous club sessions that took place in preparation for the grand tournament.

“For the past six months or so, our entire UNISMUN crew honed our skills with each and every club meeting,” Seungwoo Oh (10), SIS MUN club member and history expert, said. “Personally, I experienced the results of hard practice tangibly, even being able to completely dominate our committee for a bulk of the 3-day conference.”

UNISMUN Hanoi was the first international MUN conference for many of the club members, a majority of whom expressed their content with the newfound experience. Perceiving the living conditions of LEDCs firsthand spoke volumes about the nations delegates were representing.

“International trips like UNISMUN are eye-opening,” Philip Conrad Bliss (10), SIS MUN club member and avid traveler, said. “There is a stark difference in learning how to be a diplomat in a classroom environment and actually taking the time to understand the problems you’re striving to resolve. These international trips serve as a reminder of the world we’re trying to change on paper.”