Conference Highlights: ULMUN 2022

ULMUN 2022 will be one of the unforgettable conferences in my MUN journey. While I have participated in MUN for more than four years before studying at LSE, ULMUN was my first university-level conference. And it helped me to grow not only as a delegate, but also as a person at the end of the day.

Before sharing my thoughts about ULMUN, I would like to highlight that this was my third conference as a delegate. I was that lucky girl who could serve various positions in MUN just because my school didn’t have lots of students interested in MUN. It was no wonder why my self-assessment as a delegate was so poor, compared to the relatively thorough understanding of how the MUN conference works. 

Given this context, I wanted to give my best to ULMUN and lead the committee without leaving any regret behind. Of course, there were some clear challenges. Although I really loved the UNHRC, I was assigned as a delegate of Afghanistan when we had to discuss protecting human rights during political transitions, as well as protecting and rehabilitating the stateless people. Even though I didn’t have to represent the Taliban government, it was even more difficult to research the Old government’s policies because recent sources assumed that the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Nevertheless, I truly enjoyed the whole process of finding valuable sources to build my stance as a delegate of Afghanistan. (I was quite proud of myself when Priya, one of the UNHRC chairs, gave me positive feedback on my research!)

Another realistic challenge was balancing between my academic work and ULMUN preparation. ULMUN only allowed about four to five days for research, and unfortunately I had a 2000-word history essay due by that week’s Friday, a day right before the conference. I was committed to producing high-quality outcomes on both tasks, so I set myself a goal to finish and submit the history essay by Wednesday morning. In that way, I had at least three to four days to research for ULMUN. To be honest, it was tough. Both of them were time-consuming activities, and I had to plan ahead to finish everything on time. Through this experience, however, I learned how to manage my time effectively so that I could easily switch between my two hats: a good delegate hat, and a good IR and History student hat.

Eventually, I had literally ‘the best’ experience as a delegate so far at ULMUN. This was not only my first time leading the discussion at the forefront of the committee (including being one of the panel of authors), but also drafting the resolution that eventually passed. I was no longer a shy delegate who waited until other delegates would find me at the corner of the room. While it is not easy to maneuver around the committee room with a wheelchair, I asked other delegates to form a larger circle to join in the conversation during unmods. I was fully engaged during the two days of the conference, and my internal fear of speaking up was now gone.

I would be brutally honest here (currently applying an emotional tactic that I learned for the opening speech here), I was slightly upset when I ended up not getting an award. However, I soon realised that awards are not everything. The award may be a temporary reward to make my day, but what really lasts after the conference are the people I meet through the experience. After all those debates and superlatives (and Pictionary led by one of the delegates), I still keep in touch with the delegate of Ukraine (who is studying at Hult Business school now). Some of my fellow TeamLSE delegates of UNHRC now know each other’s debate strategies too well. And most importantly, regardless of which committee we were in for ULMUN, TeamLSE is my huge family here. Not only that we borrow each other’s red attires for MUN, but also we help out anyone who is in trouble. I’m still grateful for everyone who cared for me and took me to Sunday's social (small side note: the electricity in my room and the flat kitchen were out on Sunday, so there was a risk of not being able to charge my wheelchair. I was thinking of not joining the social because of this). And to be honest, we just say hi whenever we bump into each other on campus (even if it’s not for MUN). I’m sincerely privileged to be part of this wonderful team, and look forward to building my MUN-related memories in the future. Thank you everyone, for everything!

Hanseul Lee