Every year in January, thousands of well-dressed high schoolers come to Yale from across the country and the world for four days of simulated diplomacy. These students are here each year for YMUN — Yale Model United Nations, one of the world’s most prominent Model UN conferences for high schoolers. At YMUN, these students take on the role of delegates to the United Nations, learning negotiation, public speaking and international affairs while working with their peers to debate a topic and write international law.

When I was a student at one of the comparatively few public high schools with a Model UN club (despite continued progress, the activity remains concentrated among upper-crust private schools), I dreamed of one day taking part in a conference as grand and prestigious as YMUN. Model UN was a truly formative experience for me in high school — I gushed about it on my Yale application, crediting the activity with teaching me self-confidence and sparking my passion for international relations.

Enter YIRA, the Yale International Relations Association. One of the largest student organizations on campus, YIRA is the umbrella organization which oversees nearly a dozen international relations programs, including Model UN conferences ranging from the flagship YMUN conference at Yale, now in its 49th year, to smaller conferences for high schoolers in Europe, Korea, Taiwan, and most recently, Rwanda. Each year, several hundred Yalies give their time to serve these conferences...

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