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An escape to Boston

February 21, 2009

After a semester and a half of hard work, we finally made it to the Harvard National Model United Nations Conference. This year we represented the newly founded Republic of Montenegro. Twelve students from Rollins traveled to this conference, including fellow R-Journalist Brittany Fornof. With over 3,000 students in attendance, this conference is if not the largest, one of the largest collegiate-level Model UN conferences in the world. When Ariane Rosen and I started this club last year, we had always envisioned attending this conference, we just did not know whether we were going to get sufficient funding. After drafting a 15 page proposal to the Office of the Provost, we were granted enough funds to secure 12 seats at the HNMUN conference.

The conference was held at the Boston Park Plaza and how it works is that all twelve of us represented the country of Montenegro, we went in as a delegation and each of us were in separate committees. I was representing Montenegro in the World Health Organization. Each committee has two topics assigned by the committee director sometime in the previous fall, and the first order of business is a small debate over which topic should be discussed first; this is no light matter because usually throughout the four days of conference, a committee only goes through one topic. In my committee, we chose to debate the question of health care as a human right. It was interesting to see all the countries represented by college students around the world and duly represented when it came to this issue.

Rollins has not had a Model UN group in decades and last year it was Rollins’ first time at HNMUN. What I appreciate from having attended this conference is to see the convergence of so many people of different backgrounds. Of the 3,000 conference attendees, over half were from outside of the United States. There were even five universities from Venezuela (my home) attending the conference. This aura of internationality is almost intimidating because of the clashing differences, there were 35 nations represented in the conference which includes an irony such as the most expensive private university in Venezuela was attending this conference representing the Republic of Cuba. I remember when I represented Cuba in high school and it is hard to try and argument for a position which is hard to agree with at times.

During one of our free mornings, Artie (my roommate and VP of Model UN) and I traveled around the city to visit some schools. We both believe in the power of visualization so it was important for me to see potential grad schools and see if I would be able to go there. After this semester I will be done with half of my college career so it is time to start thinking post-Rollins as sad as that sounds. I still have time and that is why all of this is in the backburner of my brain. The picture I have posted is in front of Harvard Business School. We decided to visit Cambridge during our free time and we met the Peruvian windpipe singers who play outside the station.

This five-day escape to Boston was well-timed; it was far enough into the semester where I could have used a little cold weather and snow from up north but far enough from midterms when crunch time begins. Opportunities like these are not hard to find at Rollins because students are motivated and there is always someone willing to make things happen, you just have to look for it.

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