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Started from the bottom…

By Chloe Maya Villaret

A few words from our guest speaker on THIMUN, teens, and the future of the United Nations.

All Drake references aside, if there was ever a person more inspiring than our guest speaker Soo Yeon Kim, we’d like to meet them. A former THIMUN attendee herself, she obtained a PhD in Political Science from Yale University and now works in Singapore as an Associate Professor for the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore. Ms. Kim was kind enough to take some time to answer our questions and give us an insight on what it takes to climb the ladder, and make it in the business.

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CV: What’s the most interesting aspect of your job at the moment?

 

SYK: My research. I do research on trade agreements in Asia. I find that fascinating because of all the trade activity that’s been happening recently. There’s a lot of competition between countries with big economies, like China and the US, Japan. In fact, I’m working on a book about free trade agreements in Asia!

 

CV: Can you tell us a bit about your MUN experience?

 

SYK: It was a great experience. It was a great mix of the social aspect and then the more serious debating aspect. There was a lot of clashing, a lot of contestation in the committee rooms and some competition between delegates which I thought was great. I really enjoyed it, for sure. As you know my experience was in the early years of THIMUN The Hague, which was just Model United Nations at the time, and there were delegates coming in from all over the US, and Europe and even the Middle East. It was really something special.

 

CV: Of all the countries you represented as a delegate, which was your favorite and which committee did you most enjoy taking part in?

 

SYK: I think it was probably the Soviet Union on the Security Council at my high school’s MUN conference. That was really cool. I got to deny something that happened! Even though there was a picture on the board of something happening in the Soviet Union I got to deny it and say “Nope, such things never happened in my country.” That was fun!

 

CV: What is your abiding memory from all your years of MUN experience?

SYK: Now I’ve only been to one conference so the abiding memory for me would be just one of a huge gathering from all sorts of countries and all sorts of ideological persuasions working together. This was a very international event obviously, and that aspect really stayed with me. The friends that I went with, my classmates, still remember it!

 

CV: If you could be part of any delegation at THIMUN 2014, which would it be? Which committee would you choose?

 

SYK: That’s a very difficult question. It would probably be on ECOSOC. I’d love to tackle healthcare education, I like that topic a lot. Or maybe measures to promote sustainable development in the field of energy, still with ECOSOC. As for the delegation, I think it would be fun to be China.

 

CV: In what way is MUN preparing us for a career in the fields of political science, politics, and international relations?

 

SYK: I think it gives you a sense of, first of all some balance between the real world and the abstract academic scholarship. You study things from an abstract theoretical point of view, so participating in MUN helps you ground your thoughts in the real world which I think is always important because no matter what we do that’s academic, we always try to make sure that it’s relevant to some public debate. That’s one of the reasons why I agreed to come to this event, so I could figure out exactly why what I study is important, especially to the younger generation.

 

CV: What was, in your opinion, this year’s key event or key debate, and why?

 

SYK: A lot of things happened this year. There was of course the atrocities in Syria. But I don’t know if you can really call them a key event, so much as just something that is appalling in this century- or any century. As far as a key event, I’m going to have to go with the convergence of all these nations in Beijing last week at the APEC summit. A lot was achieved, and a lot was not achieved.

CV: Many people question the United Nation’s relevance and efficiency. What are your thoughts on that? What future do you foresee for the UN?

 

SYK: If you take the status quo in terms of voting power and the structure as a given, I think the changes will come from an evolution when it comes to the kinds of issues that are coming within the ambient of the General Assembly. I think it’s a good development because more global problems are become local problems and inversely more local problems are becoming global problems. The boundaries between them are blurring and I think that’s a good development. In terms of efficiency…is there a way to make it more efficient? That could only come with an institutional reform, but given the status quo you don’t really see much in the way of change. We’ll see who becomes the next Secretary General. That should be interesting, I mean they do help determine the course of the UN quite a bit. Ban Ki-Moon has done it, Kofi Annan has done it. So I think that will depend a lot on the next Secretary General.

 

CV: If you could describe THIMUN in one sentence, what would it be?

SYK: It’s the rite of passage for future leaders, and future global citizens.

 

CV: Can you offer any words of advice for our delegates?

SYK: Go for it! Sky’s the limit. I think this is the one real chance you get at solving world problems without any actual limits or restrictions on what is possible.

 

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