Category: Aashna Mehul Jain

I participated in the fifth session of Harvard Model United Nations India that took place in
the city of Hyderabad as the delegate of South Sudan in
General Assembly I: Disarmament and International Security Council. Although I did not win any awards in this event, this conference ended up becoming extremely rewarding.

While preparing for the conference, researching about the country that I was representing, South Sudan, enabled me to get a deeper understanding about the conflicts and problems that newly made, war-struck countries face. The topic area that my committee was discussing, “Asymmetric Warfare and National Sovereignty” was, in the beginning quite difficult to understand, but after further research, I discovered that although ‘law’ seems like a universal, eternal concept, changing global scenarios and advancement in modern warfare techniques has caused the foundations on which the concept of ‘countries’ has been built to become obsolete. Therefore, this conference helped me connect with issues of global significance.
This conference also gave me the wonderful opportunity to interact with people from different walks of life. I made friends who came from different countries and backgrounds and not only learnt about their perspectives on international politics, but also realized that the world today has become so flat, that no matter where we come from, we are all able to dance to the same songs and laugh at the same songs.

This conference taught me the importance of working collaboratively and the need to be patient and tolerant because in a committee of nearly 200 people, resolutions can be formed only if people work together. This conference also inculcated in me important lessons about compromise and leadership while working in a bloc (a bloc is a group of countries that has the same position on a topic). My skills were tested when I had to use my research and knowledge about international relations to come up with creative, yet pragmatic solutions for the topic area.

Overall, I am really glad that I attended the conference, and I hope I’ll be able to attend and maybe even win next year.

I was the segment coordinator for an event called ‘Ads to Add Up’ in the Literature and Humanities Fest. Using the activity, I was able to provide my peers with a platform to exhibit their creativity and persuasive skills.

Organizing this event was a unique experience because I have a tendency to micro-manage everything that I do, but in this event, I tried to be a little more liberal. In the beginning, the chaos that was ensuing in the room was agreeable to me because I like order, but then I realized that I need to let participants make noise and have fun for them to truly appreciate the event.

I was able to connect the event which required participants to make advertisements about ‘a pen that only writes the truth’ to what I’ve learnt about marketing in Business Management and what I’ve learnt about advertising in Hindi and what I’ve learnt about persuasion in English. Out of all the advertisements that participants made, the one that used the elements of humor seemed to be the most popular, because it was directed at a target audience that consists of school children. The best advertisement also used the 4 P’s of the marketing mix (Price, Product, Promotion and Place) which was evidence that following the theory that we have learnt in Business Management will lead to better results in practical life.

This activity really helped me work on my tolerance and patience simply because it tested my tolerance and patience at every step of the way. It was extremely difficult to manage so many students who were making so much noise. I learnt that the best way to get people to listen to you is not to speak loudly, but to become quiet. When you stop addressing the crown, individual participants come and ask you their doubts, which leads to better communication.

I also took a feedback session about the activity, and found that most participants enjoyed it. Some of them did not quite enjoy the topic that they had and I think that’s something I can work on the next time I do such an event, i.e, I can do ‘market research’ before setting up the event (More BM connections!).

Overall, I am satisfied with how the event turned out, and I was able to use my creativity in terms of coming up with the topic, rules of the event and the poster for the event to provide a service to my peers.

 

 

I conducted an orientation session with students from our school who are going to be participating in a Model United Nations conference. As they were mostly first time delegates, I believe I helped them by imparting the knowledge I have gained by having participated in various Model United Nations Conferences.

 

Helping my juniors made me feel very good about myself, because the purpose of Model UN’s is to help the world, and helping the world begins at home. All the students seemed very eager to listen to all that I had to say, and this helped me feel confident in my speaking skills.

 

During the course of this session, I was able to identify the skills I had learnt in MUNs and I tried my best to help the junior students learn these skills too.  I also talked to them about how the typical MUN schedule works and gave them tips about research and preparation, which I believe will help them make the most out of their MUN experience.

 

Even students who I thought would not be interested in an activity as challenging as MUN conferences seemed to be enthusiastic to start researching  for and participating in them, which led me to change the perspective with which I saw many of my juniors.

 

In the future, I hope to conduct more sessions like this one, so that I am able to raise awareness about global issues, leadership skills and public speaking in my school.

              

I participated in the Inter House Debate Competition that was a part of the Literature and Humanities Fest. The topic of the debate was “Is competition necessary?” and our house had to speak AGAINST the topic.

I was confident of my public speaking and debating skills and the competition gave me the opportunity to hone them. However, was apprehensive of advocating for something that I myself am against, but then I decided to analyse the topic from an emotional perspective , which is new for me, because usually I rely on well, researched, logical points in debates. This shift in method gave me the opportunity to develop a new skill, which is persuasion using pathos. I was able to use the techniques of persuasion (fear, shock value) that we were taught in English class while I wrote the opening speech for the debate, and it made me glad that I was able to apply bookish knowledge to real life.

It was also a good experience to debate with a team, because usually when I go to MUNs, I am on my own. Debating collaboratively made me realize how different people are able to connect different real life situations and examples to a given topic which lead to to the understanding that different people have different ways of saying the same thing, and that all the ways are unique and correct.

I was also glad that the competition gave me a platform to speak up about something I feel strongly about; the stress and harm that competitive exams inflict on students. It good know that teachers were able to empathize with the stress that students undergo. I hope that my speech changes the way we are burdened with homework and test!

Overall, though the arguments that I made had a lot of room for improvement, I am happy with my participation and performance in the competition.