By Sonja Chai
Wan Jin Park, Shanghai American School senior, is extremely excited to be at THIMUN-Singapore for one of the last conferences in his high-school career. It’s been a long road for Park, one that started for him as a delegate in small, middle-school conferences and ends with his holding a position as President of ECOSOC at the 2007 Singapore-THIMUN conference. Park is currently in his ninth year at Shanghai American School, having moved from Korea at the beginning of third grade. He first became involved in MUN in eighth grade because, as he stated bluntly, “My friends were in it.” However, he explains that when he reached high school, what with tryouts and bigger conferences, “I started to become aware of the issues our world is facing… after that, it’s hard to go back to being complacent—we’re cultivating our vision of society, if you will.”As president of ECOSOC, Park is looking forward to both leading and chairing debates, in addition to offering guidance to the deputy presidents. His favorite aspect of MUN is the conferences, being able to witness “new ideas from different people from different backgrounds,” and also when “debates get heated…[it’s] exciting to watch.” Park looks forward to discussion and debate with regards to the issues on the agenda. He speaks candidly about their importance and significance in today’s world: “. . .In our forum, we deal with issues that pertain directly to the individual. . .which, while not as exciting [as those in other forums], are still crucial, perhaps more imperative than others. “For instance, the Millennium Development Goals: 46% of children in India are malnourished, a 1% decrease over the last few years, which is not much. Reflecting on that. . .poor progress, it is imperative to come up with creative solutions to attain or achieve these goals.”For the delegates in ECOSOC he has pertinent advice for the upcoming days of debate and discussion: “Hopefully we’ll have constructive debate, but sometimes delegates expect too much of themselves [and] it turns into a kind of mental block. Like when you’re applying to college and you know you have to write an amazing essay but can’t think of anything to write. I mean, it’s good to expect a lot of yourselves, but not too much.”When asked what he does in his free time, he laughed, “I don’t have free time. . .I’m applying to college! If I do have free time, I feel guilty about not doing work.” When pressed, he struggled to think of an answer: “I watched Transformers [recently]! I like hanging out with friends, like everyone does. I’m pretty normal.” In school, when not busy thinking up ways to save the world in MUN, he enjoys—even above his other classes—studying economics. “When I was young, I always wondered why a country like Singapore, which has to import its own water, could prosper, whereas a country like Nigeria could not, despite its abundance of oil and other resources. In the study of economics, these questions, and their answers, became clearer.”Park is eagerly awaiting the upcoming 2007 Singapore THIMUN conference, not least of all because “this is going to be my last. . . I hope it’s exciting, and that there will be creative ideas and solutions to issues that are affecting our world today, to inspire ideas in me as I move out of ‘model’ conferencing and into the real world.”
Wan Jin Park, Shanghai American School senior, is extremely excited to be at THIMUN-Singapore for one of the last conferences in his high-school career. It’s been a long road for Park, one that started for him as a delegate in small, middle-school conferences and ends with his holding a position as President of ECOSOC at the 2007 Singapore-THIMUN conference. Park is currently in his ninth year at Shanghai American School, having moved from Korea at the beginning of third grade. He first became involved in MUN in eighth grade because, as he stated bluntly, “My friends were in it.” However, he explains that when he reached high school, what with tryouts and bigger conferences, “I started to become aware of the issues our world is facing… after that, it’s hard to go back to being complacent—we’re cultivating our vision of society, if you will.”As president of ECOSOC, Park is looking forward to both leading and chairing debates, in addition to offering guidance to the deputy presidents. His favorite aspect of MUN is the conferences, being able to witness “new ideas from different people from different backgrounds,” and also when “debates get heated…[it’s] exciting to watch.” Park looks forward to discussion and debate with regards to the issues on the agenda. He speaks candidly about their importance and significance in today’s world: “. . .In our forum, we deal with issues that pertain directly to the individual. . .which, while not as exciting [as those in other forums], are still crucial, perhaps more imperative than others. “For instance, the Millennium Development Goals: 46% of children in India are malnourished, a 1% decrease over the last few years, which is not much. Reflecting on that. . .poor progress, it is imperative to come up with creative solutions to attain or achieve these goals.”For the delegates in ECOSOC he has pertinent advice for the upcoming days of debate and discussion: “Hopefully we’ll have constructive debate, but sometimes delegates expect too much of themselves [and] it turns into a kind of mental block. Like when you’re applying to college and you know you have to write an amazing essay but can’t think of anything to write. I mean, it’s good to expect a lot of yourselves, but not too much.”When asked what he does in his free time, he laughed, “I don’t have free time. . .I’m applying to college! If I do have free time, I feel guilty about not doing work.” When pressed, he struggled to think of an answer: “I watched Transformers [recently]! I like hanging out with friends, like everyone does. I’m pretty normal.” In school, when not busy thinking up ways to save the world in MUN, he enjoys—even above his other classes—studying economics. “When I was young, I always wondered why a country like Singapore, which has to import its own water, could prosper, whereas a country like Nigeria could not, despite its abundance of oil and other resources. In the study of economics, these questions, and their answers, became clearer.”Park is eagerly awaiting the upcoming 2007 Singapore THIMUN conference, not least of all because “this is going to be my last. . . I hope it’s exciting, and that there will be creative ideas and solutions to issues that are affecting our world today, to inspire ideas in me as I move out of ‘model’ conferencing and into the real world.”
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