Ferrahian Students Make Huge Presence at USC Model UN

LOS ANGELES—Students from Holy Martyrs Ferrahian High School have taken their next big steps to becoming world leaders at University of Southern California’s first ever Model United Nations conference.

Model United Nations is a highly competitive extracurricular activity where students from all over the country, and in some cases the world, represent countries that are members of the UN. Delegates demonstrate their knowledge of foreign policy and diplomacy, all while debating the most current international issues. Conferences are often held internationally and some of the most prestigious ones include those held by UCLA and UC Berkeley. This year, USC has decided to get in on the action.

The Trojan MUN secretariat had been planning their first conference for over a year and as the date approached, they decided to enlist the help of high school students. Six students from Ferrahian High School were chosen from hundreds of veteran Model United Nations participants to be a part of an elite group of fifteen individuals to serve as the high school staff. These students were Alex Kazorian, Van Der Mgrditchian (seniors), Vagarshak Avetisyan, Nicole Nalbandian, Steven Terterian, and Alina Mirzaian (juniors). Instead of playing the traditional role of a delegate representing a country, these students took on a whole new task: running the conference.

From Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, the high school staff played a major role in ensuring that the conference ran smoothly and efficiently. The responsibilities they took on ran from small task, such as passing notes between delegates, to intense research for Crisis committees. It was quite a change from your typical MUN but it was all for the better.

The students from Ferrahian gained a whole new insight on these types of conferences and are striving for more ambitious goals. Since their participation in the USC conference, the size of the MUN club at Ferrahian has grown tremendously, as more and more students strive for the gavel which is the highest honor at any MUN conference awarded to the Best Delegate.

The six students who took part in USC’s conference were invited again next year by the extremely satisfied secretariat. It’ll be not time until there are more Armenian leaders in the world.