SAMAR's personal statement to Rice University

My mouth was dry, my heart was pounding, and my palms were sweating; I knew I would be next to approach the podium, and I was extremely nervous. It was my first time participating in the Model United Nations Conference, and I was trying to pass a resolution on the issue of alternative energy sources. I began to sip some water to calm my nerves, and I heard the chairperson say, “France, you may approach the podium”. Even though I knew I was next, this came to me as a surprise, and I began to choke a little on my water. To my utter embarrassment, I began to cough loudly. Aware of the judgemental stares of the other delegates, I took another sip of water, stuffed my sweaty hands in my pocket, swallowed my fear, and got up.

I approached the podium, passing the other delegates, and had to go through the embarrassment of asking some delegates to move out of the way, or to move their chairs. It was taking me forever to reach the podium, and I could feel the delegates’ burning eyes watch my every move. After what seemed like a lifetime, I reached the podium, and began to think to myself, “if I considered walking to the podium an embarrassing and difficult task, how will I be able to talk in front of all of these people?”.

I collected my thoughts as I organized my papers, and consequently began to speak to the other delegates. At first it was somewhat nerve wrecking, but the more I talked, the more I felt at ease. As I began to engage openly with the other delegates, I soon forgot the reasons behind my nervousness. While explaining one particular point in the resolution, I instinctively grabbed a white board marker, and began to draw a direct application of economic theory, the externality graph. As I contextualized the diagram, I began to see more and more heads begin to nod in approval. After explaining the economics portion of my presentation, I returned to my table, and waited for the voting procedure to commence. To my utter ecstasy and delight, the resolution was passed, marking my first successful act as an amateur diplomat.

This event was one of the most significant events of my young life, because at that moment I realized the field of study I truly wanted to explore, economics. By using such a simple economic diagram, I was able to persuade delegates ranging from the Palestinian Authority to Albania, to agree to the resolution set forth. At that moment, I realized that economics is the key to cooperation between nations. Through economics, one can overlook the conflicting ideologies, religions, habits, etc that are accompanied with politics. Economics, to a great extent, deals with money, a universal concept independent of the prior setbacks. As a result, political and cultural barriers can be removed making the global community one step closer to the idea of a universal citizen. The magnitude of economics’ power to unify countries shown to me on the day of the conference showed me that by dealing with things at a small simple scale, you can affect change in a larger sense.

SAMAR Al Ansari
Grade 12