On November 6, students from Parker participated in the Saint Ignatius Model United Nations conference. It is the first conference of the year for the club, and it is one of the first to be back in-person. After having a series of fall symposia, the Parker delegates were ready to take on this conference. “The series of fall symposia that we have are mainly preparation for the big SIMUN conference,” Upper School history teacher Jeanne Barr said. “These first symposia help the delegates to practice their speaking and researching skills.” 

SIMUN isn’t the only conference that will take place this school year. There are other conferences where delegates travel out of the state, like the upcoming San Franciscoor New York City conferences. This year, the symposia are acting differently. Based on the number of symposia a delegate goes to for each season, they may go to the particular conference that takes place. “It’s something different that we are doing this year, and it helps give delegates a taste of how Model UN works if they’re new,” said Barr. 

Last year SIMUN was one of the first conferences that went remote, facing lots of wifi and technology issues. Krish Malhotra, a sophomore who attended SIMUN last year and this year said, “It was so much better to be back in-person because it allows you to interact with people more closely,” he said. “That is important because Model UN is all about communication and debate.”

Malhotra also participated in Model UN in Middle School, and compared it to his first in-person high school conference experience. “The level of skill that the delegates had and the maturity was really the biggest difference,” he said.

“It was so fulfilling to get to participate in a Model UN conference after so long,” said junior and Model UN Captain Rania Jones.

A new student to high school conferences, Lincoln Hamid, was surprised by SIMUN. “I was really surprised about how many people were there,” he said. “I really enjoyed meeting lots of new people, and thought that the conference was a great experience.” After attending many middle school conferences, the biggest difference he noticed was the number of people.

Jones was worried at first about going back to the conference after almost two years since the last remote conference. However, after lots of delegates started to show up to the preparation symposia, the process went smoothly. 

“Personally I felt a little more nervous for debate than I have in a while,” Jones said. “Being remote was a lot easier because of the access to the internet and different modes of communication with the other delegates.” 

Six delegates from Parker won an award out of the more than thirty Parker delegates that attended SIMUN. “The delegates this year are never afraid to try something new, give their hardest work, and learn,”  Jones said. “Those are the reasons why the number of delegates that we had won awards!”