At their first Model United Nations conference of the school year, freshmen Lisa Kondricks and junior David Gomez Siu were recognized as Distinguished Delegates, and sophomores Lauren Landry and Lauren Sampson were recognized as Exceptional Delegates. The conference, which took place at Diablo Valley College on November 4, awarded first and second place to Foothill and Dougherty Valley, respectively.

According to club president Michael DaRodda, in Model UN “there are ten different committees and each committee has two separate issues… Certain countries have certain opinions on how to solve this issue or what should be emphasized or how it should be funded.” Model UN students represent the viewpoints of these countries, and they “cooperate with countries that have the same viewpoints” at the conference.

“Mainly you’re just trying to establish what would be a working solution towards [the issue.] Much of the time everybody will agree, but it’s just different ways of phrasing it and making sure that whatever you want to have on the ultimate final product ends up there. Because some final details can be removed,” DaRodda added.

“We were all very enthusiastic about this year’s Model UN,” said senior club member Zoe Portnoff. “It was a lot of fun and we all worked very hard to educate ourselves about the perspectives of our countries.”

Portnoff said that she felt “pretty good” about her performance. “I was representing Columbia. I did a pretty good amount of research beforehand on their policies on drones and cyber security. One of the things I really like about MUN is that you’re given the opportunity to learn about policies of countries that you wouldn’t necessarily learn about at school or on your own regularly, so it was definitely interesting taking a look into current events in Columbia,” she said.

Landry said that she thinks more practice might’ve helped the Model UN team. “I think that would be the hugest thing because a lot of these [schools] have a serious club, or it’s a class and they go to a lot of conferences, so therefore it’s just a more developed program,” she said.

However, DaRodda said that historically, Campolindo’s Model UN goes to only one conference a year, and then the club is generally “absent from November to June.”

“That is the biggest discussion point. Will there be another conference? Those are currently engaging talks with the leadership, Mr. Boyd, our club advisor, and all of the potential leaders for next year,” DaRodda said. “There are several other conferences throughout the area, like five more within an hour drive through the rest of the school year and going to them does pose logistical issues.” He added that it’s still possible that Model UN could attend those conferences.

Portnoff said that she still has high hopes for the club. “I think there’s a lot of strong underclassmen that are definitely passionate about learning about the world and solving these problems. At the conference there were lots of freshmen and new members, not only from Campolindo, but from other schools as a whole and I think this really shows the interest that high schools students have in solving these world problems and it really encourages me that people are interested in that sort of subject,” she said.