Model United Nations is when a bunch of students gather to discuss an international problem or crises, acting as a United Nations committee. Each delegate (or two delegates) acts as one country, and has to research their country’s stance on a given topic.

That all sounds fine and good, but there’s a problem:

Model UN sucks.

I used to love MUN. I saw MUN as the pinnacle of extracurricular activities. As someone who’s going to college abroad, people kept on telling me how important MUN was for my college applications. They said, “Be an active MUNer, put that on your application, and it’ll be a huge boost.”

Also, MUN looked so cool to me. Everyone wore suits and acted professionally and the organizers hosted banquets at fancy hotels or exhibition halls.

However, having participated in my share of MUN conferences, I have realized MUN isn’t all that. In fact, it’s lame.

MUN doesn’t help with confidence or English skills

When I attended my first MUN conference as a ninth grader, I was excited to improve my speaking and social skills. However, I soon realized how little help MUN offers. The problem is during conferences, those who speak up the most and lead their blocs are people who are already good at speaking.

As I was a first-time MUNer, a lot of my ideas were dismissed. Of course, I wasn’t the best, but I had a lot of ideas I wanted to share. Yet, no one bothered listening to me because they thought I was just a newbie who should sit back and listen.

At first, I tried to stand at the podium and share my thoughts. However, when I could see people not caring about what I had to say, I stopped. I noticed that there were so many people who hadn’t gone on stage once. When I approached them during unmoderated caucuses, which is a timed period where delegates of the MUN can move freely to speak with who they want to speak to, they told me all about their ideas and opinions, which I thought were innovative and helpful. Yet, they told me they didn’t have the confidence to share them with the committee.

MUN events are run by snobs. Usually people who are “good” at MUN are condescending and think they’re always right, thus making other people afraid to share their ideas.

What are high school students going to know about international crises?

If a committee of professionals (e.g., the actual United Nations) is incapable of solving international problems and crises, I doubt a bunch of high school students can come up with useful solutions.

It’s not that we’re not smart enough, it’s just that we’re at an age where we don’t have enough knowledge and experience. We don’t know enough about international affairs and international law to come up with practical solutions to these difficult issues. Of course, one would argue that the purpose of MUN is to gain this knowledge, but that never happens.

I know this is true because I always find so many people using ChatGPT for everything: for their position papers, for their draft resolutions, for their clauses. Of course, ChatGPT can offer assistance to a certain extent, but at MUN most people just copy and paste whatever AI churns out.

Also, because of high school students’ immaturity, most of the conferences I attended had the most unfeasible solutions ever. MUN is intended to help students think critically about global issues, yet actual solutions proposed are usually more comical or “funny” than accurate.

For example, at one MUN we discussed the situation in Afghanistan. One bloc was led by the United States, and the other by China. Each bloc drafted its draft resolution, which was very different from the other. Yet, in the end, the two draft resolutions were completely merged, forming one final resolution, which did not make sense at all. Certain countries blindly abandoned their entire stances just to fit the other side, and all this was just to merge the two documents, which all delegates saw as the final goal of the conference. This wasn’t compromise, it was incoherence.

There are better alternatives to Model United Nations

If you want to learn about international law or policy, take classes. Read books. Follow international news. If you want to learn how to be better at public speaking, take a public speaking class. If you want to learn to research and debate ideas, join speech and debate. MUN isn’t the only, nor is it the best, activity to help with critical thinking skills, speaking skills, and other skills people swear MUN can help you with.

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If you think about it, MUN is really just for rich kids to dress up and pretend. The fees you have to pay to attend a MUN conference is not cheap. People who do attend MUN conferences enjoy wearing suits, looking cool, meeting new people, and increasing their Instagram follower count. That’s why during every unmoderated caucus, you don’t see many people discussing; instead, you see people exchanging Instagram handles.

With so many alternatives to choose from, I implore you to think twice about it before you participate in a MUN conference.