Carson team wins awards at TechMUN conference hosted by TJHSST

RCMS’s Model United Nations delegates won several awards while participating in the annual TechMUN conference on May 13 at Thomas Jefferson High School.

“I was looking forward to attending the conference for a long time and was very excited as I knew it would be a good experience for me,” said Aarna Bhamidipati, an eighth-grader on the Dolphins team, who was one of 12 students who participated.

Model United Nations, also known as Model UN or MUN, is an extracurricular activity where students, known as delegates, participate in conferences throughout the school year while mirroring the United Nations by attempting to solve international problems around the world.

“The idea of Model UN is brainstorming solutions which would be effective internationally and basically persuading people to back it up further, so it can be seen as the best one, which is the overall goal,” said Ms. Annie Thrasher, one of Carson’s Model UN sponsors. 

The TechMUN conference is an annual Model United Nations conference which is hosted by TJHSST where delegates from high schools and middle schools come together to compete with their assigned committee from the perspective of the country they are representing.

“TechMUN was probably one of the best conferences we’ve attended this year because it was a high school and middle school conference at the same time, which definitely gave the students more experience being around and working with different people,” said Ms. Thrasher.

Our Model UN delegates have been preparing for this conference for almost five months now and have high expectations, as this is the first TechMUN conference they are attending in-person as a school, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Before attending the conference, I was obviously excited because it was the last conference of the year and I love attending them, but I was also nervous because I was about to go speak in front of high school judges which I have never seen before,” said Zoeb Izzi, a seventh grade MUN delegate on the Trailblazers team.

Although the conference felt a bit overwhelming for students as a result of high school students attending as well, they felt well prepared as a middle school.

“I believe that as a school we were all fairly prepared, and although it was mostly independent preparation, we all definitely pushed ourselves to the best of our abilities for our groups,” said Aarna Bhamidipati, an eighth grade MUN senior on the Dolphins team.

At the conference, Longfellow Middle School won the Best Middle School award and gaveled, meaning they won Best Delegate in their commitee, disrupting Carson’s streak this school year. Although Carson did not end up gaveling this conference, many of their delegates won awards.

“We were all very shocked to not win ‘Best Middle School’, but I think it’s okay because we should be able to know what it feels like to not win every time and learn how we can do better the next time around,” said Aarna.

Multiple students were recognized for their delegations during the conference and won awards for their groups. 

• Aarna Bhamidipati and Dhaya Kumaresam won Verbal Commendation
• Tanish Gottimukkula and Rishab Nanduri won Verbal Commendation 
• Kavin Murugan and Vikram Ruraraju won Honorable Mention
• Christine Qiao and Salban Nithitaselvan won Honorable Mention 
• Kabeer Parmar and Zoeb Izzi won Outstanding Delegation
• Aditi Kodukula won Outstanding Delegation
• Claire Zhang and Michelle Zuo won Best Delegation (Gavel)

“Overall, personally as a delegate, I think it was a great experience for me and my partner,” said Zoeb. “Together I think we achieved a lot and did our best, which is the most we can do.”