21 delegates from LT’s Model United Nations club flew to Boston on Jan. 9 in order to participate in a MUN conference sponsored by Harvard University. Over 3,000 people from 36 countries were at the conference, which was located at a Sheraton Hotel nearby Harvard’s campus.

“It was a new experience,” Faculty Advisor Andrew Johannes said. “I think they were excited, and I think that when they got there they realized it was going to be a lot harder than they anticipated.”

LT’s MUN represented the nations of Peru and Indonesia at the conference. The students’ daily schedule consisted of two sessions of meetings per day, which were about two hours apiece, sometimes longer, with breaks for lunch and dinner. On the first night, the students were in session until 11 p.m.

“You really don’t get enough sleep because of how much you’re in committee,” MUN delegate Michael Gilger ‘16 said. “So you get really tired and you’re running purely on adrenaline, which sounds really geeky, but it was pretty cool.”

While the club itself did not place overall at the conference, four LT students received awards at the conference in their committees, which potentially could have consisted of hundreds of students. Gilger, Nick Fuentes ‘16, Cristian Gonzalez ‘16 and Danny Benson ‘16 all received Honorable Mentions in their respective committees.

“It was a very competitive conference,” Gilger said. “We faced some of the best countries and schools in the world.”

While there was a general feeling of excitement when the students found out about the awards, one particular student thought he could’ve done better.

“I feel disappointed,” Fuentes said. “I wanted to get first. I deserved to get first. I made a couple of tactical miscalculations. That’s the thing about Harvard, when you’re in a committee with 193 people, one mistake and first place is gone.”

The LT MUN team also had to leave the conference early before the awards ceremony due to the huge snowstorm that was forecasted to hit to the East Coast.

“Mr. John Cronfel actually texted me in the middle of my last committee session telling me I had to be in the lobby right then,” Fuentes said. “So I had to leave, and I made my big farewell speech and took off.”

MUN’s next conference was its own LYMUN, which the club hosted and took place at SC on Feb. 28. More than 600 students from over 25 schools took part in the conference, which the club has been preparing for all year.

According to Johannes, the more experienced members acted as chairs and ran the committees during the conference in order to help the younger members of the team learn the process of MUN better. “The best part of the conference was how we were able to dictate and steer the committees in the way we wanted,” Gilger said. “It was a hoot and a half.”

MUN’s next conference will take place at Northwestern from April 9-12.