Costa Model UN travels to New York, Berkeley

By Morgan Thaler
Staff Writer

A group of 40 Mira Costa Model United Nations students began a four-day debate on Tuesday at the 39th annual National High School MUN Conference in New York City, while another group of different students will begin to debate at the University of California, Berkeley MUN conference tonight.

Unlike other conferences Costa MUN has recently attended, NHSMUN only grants overall team awards and awards for delegates in specialized committees, as opposed to individual awards for each of the committees.

“It is great that there are no individual awards at NHSMUN, because the cut-throat debate that you experience at other competitive conferences is eliminated,” junior Brian Martin said.

NHSMUN utilizes a very different system of evaluating delegates compared to other conferences. According to Costa MUN co-advisor Wayne Knutson, the conference focuses less on the competition and more on the diplomacy and cooperation between the delegates.

“I think New York is a great opportunity for everyone attending,” junior Nicole Barman said. “The upperclassmen are able to pass down the knowledge they have gained throughout their years in MUN to the sophomores who have just begun. This is a great bonding trip for the team.”

Berkeley MUN LXI is an advanced conference that Costa students ranging from sophomores to seniors are attending. Over 1,500 delegates from high schools all over the world come to debate at BMUN every year, making it one of the largest MUN conferences on the west coast.

“My partner Jaya Loharuka and I have researched our topics for the past few months, and we have spent countless hours getting prepared for this conference,” sophomore Emma Zimmerman said. “With our creative solutions, we hope that our hard work will pay off to help Mira Costa bring home the Best Delegation award.”

Due to the overlap in scheduling of the two conferences, Costa’s MUN team was forced to split. Knutson is leading the group of students in New York City, while Costa MUN co-advisor Robert Timberlake is with the MUN students in Berkeley.

“Splitting the team between two major conferences is a challenge, but I know we’ll build on our prior successes to show other schools that Mira Costa is up to that challenge,” Secretary General Braden Currey said. “If we do well at both conferences, it will reinforce the fact that our team is one of the best in the nation.”