One of my favorite parts about being on the Model UN team is having the opportunity to travel. As an out of state college student without a car on campus, it is often difficult to travel anywhere further than where the metro can take me. While this lack of travel never deterred my college experience, it was still something that I wanted to participate in. Luckily, being a member of the Model UN team made that a possibility for me.
The Model UN team has connected me to people that I would consider some of my closest friends – and many of these bonds were created during travel conferences. As a member of the team, I am given the opportunity to travel in order to compete at conferences hosted in Los Angeles all the way to Boston. The expenses for travel, hotels, registration, and meals are all covered by the team and members are not expected to pay for such things out of pocket. During my 3 years on the team, I have had the opportunity to travel to various conferences. Throughout this time, my freshman year conference experience at UCBMUN still stands out as my favorite.
UCBMUN is the Model UN conference hosted by UC Berkeley and it takes place in San Francisco. Because it is relatively far, the team usually travels via plane. This was my first big travel conference and first big trip without my parents. I remember freshman year me incessantly talking to my friends about how nervous and scared I was. I packed, unpacked, repacked, checked, and weighed my suitcase so many times you would think I was going off on a spy mission instead of a college conference. When it was finally travel day, I double checked my wallet for my ID about 50 times. Making sure it didn’t magically disappear in the 5 seconds that I spent standing normally instead of checking (amateur mistake). When I got to the team meeting spot I was buzzing with excitement. Me and all the other first years going made plans about where we would eat, when we would get coffee, what we would do after the committee. When we finally got to the airport, we checked in and went through security as normal. We followed the Eboard members the same way ducklings follow their mom. When we got to our gate, the first year gang went back to our incessant planning and giddy conversation.
Landing in San Francisco was marked with a similar nervous excitement. Our voyage to the hotel included a ride on BART, which was new to me (being from Texas – a state with horrible public transport). When we got to the hotel, we had a few hours to kill before the committee. During this time, the first year group that I was in went to town exploring the city, trying the food, and getting yummy coffee. Though we all did not know each other, we all got close through the time that we spent on this trip.
From the late night prep, end of committee gossip sessions at the Indian restaurant downtown, and the crunch time boba and coffee runs – my time at this conference got me close to members of the team that I now consider some of my best friends. These conferences have not just facilitated travel, they have played a key role in my development as student, delegate, and young adult.