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Much to celebrate in Singapore

Towards the end of the 2015 summer holidays, eight Scotch students attended the Yale-NUS Campus Asia Pacific Model United Nations in Singapore as an extension studies activity. Scotch was the only Australian school represented among the 1,100 delegates.

A Model United Nations (MUN) debate involves attendees being assigned countries to represent in the various committees of the United Nations, with the goal of each person to best represent the national interests of their country in that committee. For example, Joshua Pearse (10MN) and Daniel Qin (10SS), having been given Estonia to represent in the NATO-SCO summit, had to best represent that country’s national interests as the summit attempted to reach a resolution.

Shortly after arriving in Singapore we attended the opening and first session of the MUN. What none of us had quite anticipated was just how complicated negotiating could be. The speakers’ list was frequently interrupted with caucuses, during which coalitions would be made and splintered.

After 14-hour days and hour after hour taken to reach conclusions, we realised that the pace of diplomacy is breakneck.

As we adjusted to the note passing, scheming and drafting, we all began to gain a better understanding of the process of negotiation and diplomacy. At the end of the last day each of us had well and truly grasped the structure of the debate, and were excelling in it; so much so that Scotch received the most outstanding overseas delegation award – no mean feat, considering that for many of us it was our first MUN. Many of us also brought home prizes within the committee, including outstanding delegate, honourable mention, best position paper and best delegate.

The best part, however, came when the conference was drawing to a close. After days of shared hard work, we realised we had all become better friends for it, and had made friends with other delegates from around the world. There was so much to celebrate.

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ABVOVE: THE SCOTCH DELEGATION CELEBRATES AFTER THEIR AWARD. LEFT TO RIGHT: DANIEL QIN, JAVIER CROSS, ROBERT LIU, ANTHONY SHORTEN, ISHAAN BUNGAY, JOSHUA PEARSE, MAX FERGUSON AND CHARLES PRUDEN.

JAVIER CROSS (11BD)

Updated: 3 October 2016