Model NATO 2024

February 22 to February 25, 2024

Carleton University, Ottawa

What an incredible honour and joy it was to take part in Carleton University's 2024 Model NATO Conference along with 12 other social science students and my political sciences teacher, Marcel Mitrasca!

This Model NATO conference was the very last Model UN conference I attended as a delegate from Sainte-Anne, so there was definitely a lot of nostalgia throughout the entire weekend. However, looking back on it, I don't think I could have ended this journey on a better note.

I can still so vividly remember my first Model UN experience. McMUN 2023. January 26 to January 29. I had received close to no preparation. I had no idead what I was getting into. I stepped foot into my committee room and I instantly knew it was a very high-level crisis committee. I was surrounded by top students from Harvard and all I kept thinking is "Why am I here? I'm just in CEGEP". Nevertheless, I persevered. I attended every committee session of that conference, I watched closely the other delegates around me, their writing skills, their speeches; I was so impressed, I felt like an impostor.

But I took this impostor syndrome and I turned it into my strenght, into motivation to, one day, be as good as them. Being surrounded by people who are better than me, I think this is when I thrive the most, when the best out of me comes out. And it did. Because instead of giving up that year, I stayed in the Model UN Circuit and I kept getting better, until I became president of the committee in 2023.

And, after a great year for the committee, came Model NATO. My last conference. Once again, top students from different Canadian universities. The same feeling. And all I kept thinking was when I sat in that room at McMUN a year ago. I witnessed just how much I had grown in a year, how much confidence I had gained, how much more I was able to put myself out there. I think it was the ultimate proof for me that persevering is always the way to go. And it confirmed me that I have never given up and I never will.

Look where it got me : at Model NATO, I picked up the "Honourable Mention" Award in the North Atlantic Committee and I felt so proud of myself for not giving up, for getting out my comfort zone even if it was hard.

This conference was the perfect way for me to close the loop of my Model UN journey and there is no doubt I will never forget it!