During the simulation, I had the role of being the spokesperson for the country of Budan. Throughout the meetings, I stood up and verbally spoke in front of the room and also discussed with the other countries and NGO’s to form resolutions to the situation at hand. By being outspoken during the sessions, I was able to participate in a more physical way, and also learned how to handle my nerves while speaking in front of the room.
I felt very prepared coming into the simulation, those papers that were handed out definitely helped a lot with my notes prior to the meetings. I was definitely able to follow what the country’s true stance was during the simulation, as well as write the position paper. Being prepared definitely was important for this, especially for Budan, because we kept getting fired at by the other countries for what we were doing. I wasn’t necessarily able to accomplish my initial goal for the simulation, because our ambitions were a little high, however the class jointly came to conclusions that were somewhat fair to each side.
I enjoyed the fact that we spoke in the third person and got to argue back and forth without hurting anyone’s opinions or feelings because all of it was fake and made up. It was really cool being able to deal with something that is happening in the real world, especially in the format that we were in. On the other hand, it was hard to come to agreements due to each country’s stance, as well as friends teaming up in different groups and basically becoming opposed to the situation. That didn’t help because it was hard to pass things that benefitted my country more than the other’s.
Something that could be changed could be having more time to do the simulation and debate on resolutions. The whole thing felt rushed and didn’t seem as if everyone was taking it that seriously. One more thing could be to add a country or two into the equation, just to allow for another opinion in the discussions.
I learned the stresses behind forming resolutions in the real world, and that forming opinions during a crisis are somewhat challenging to change for or against the situation. I also learned that it’s easy to have a come back in arguments when you know more about the other side, or have been paying close attention to the communications happening on the other side of the debate.