HW Club Info

About the Club: Harvard-Westlake Model U.N. is a student run club that aims to educate its members on international relations and the procedures of the United Nations. The officers are elected at the end of each school year by the club members and begin organizing the next year’s schedule immediately. HWMUN of 2009-2010 will be under the leadership of President Joe Girton '10, Vice President Michelle Yousefzadeh '10, Secretary Claire Kao '10, Junior Representative Alex Leichenger '11, and Treasurer Ben Dreier '11, all of whom will be under the advisor, Mr. Church. The club attends an average of eight conferences a year, some local and others as far away as New York or Washington D.C. for which students may miss some school. We also host an annual high school conference which this year will take place on Saturday, October 24, 2009.

About the Members: Students participating in HWMUN are all highly motivated and independent individuals, doing research, writing papers, and attending conferences on their own time in addition to balancing full course loads and other extracurricular activities. We all do it because we love it!

Why We Love It: Model United Nations attracts different people for different reasons. Some students love public speaking and want to practice it in an evaluative environment. Some students hate public speaking but want to work through the fear. Some students are aspiring diplomats and politicians and see MUN as an opportunity to be inside the decision making process practicing for their future careers. Other students know very little initially about international politics and view their participation in Model U.N. as a learning process. Some students join because of the fabulous trips we take and others join because a friend just said it was fun. Well, it IS fun. It is fabulously fun! Whatever the reason for joining, we students stick around because we love it. We learn to speak out, do our reading and work together, and we make friends along the way.