Chilean Delegation at the 2014 Preparatory Committee to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)
The MIIS Mafia is Real
May 13, 2014
This past May I had the relatively unusual opportunity of participating in the Chilean Delegation at the 2014 Preparatory Committee to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). This treaty, which is discussed every year at the UN, is the culmination of a yearlong process that started last fall when I enrolled in a class called the NPT Simulation, designed to simulate this very same treaty. After three months of thoroughly considering and debating every issue discussed by this treaty, I was ready to use this new knowledge in whatever way possible to help the Chilean Delegation. I was not ready for the glacially slow process that is international diplomacy.
Here are a couple things they never tell you about the UN: 1) Nothing runs on time. 2) I’m pretty sure that they artificially heat all the meeting chambers to “encourage” compromise. Needless to say, I was not terribly impressed by my first encounter with international diplomacy. Fortunately, at the same time, I discovered why all the diplomats and NGO’s travel across the country or the world to attend these events – networking. During the two weeks I attended the preparatory committee, I attended at least ten additional events, either scheduled as side events during the lunch hour or in the evenings and met dozens of people working in the field I hope to join in just more than a year. Moreover, I learned something even more important: The MIIS Mafia is Real.
When I arrived at MIIS almost a year ago for a campus visit, I heard about this supposed MIIS Mafia. Of course, like most students, I assumed it was propaganda. This trip convinced me otherwise; while sitting in the trusteeship council at this year’s meeting, I was surrounded by over 30 other former MIIS alumni working on various delegations. Later in the day, I attended an event where I met other alums working at the CTBTO, a national laboratory, a nonprofit, and the Department of Energy. That evening, I even grabbed dinner and drinks with several of them, swapping stories from living in Monterey and attending MIIS, and, more importantly, I heard some of the most honest appraisals of what it is like to work for some of these organizations and how they managed to find jobs there.
I know what you’re thinking – he’s finally drunk the punch. Perhaps you’re right. All I know is that while the preparatory committee may have bored me out of my mind at times, it finally did vindicate me in my choice to attend MIIS. I came to MIIS because I knew I wanted to do nonproliferation, and I believed that MIIS was the best way to get into that field. I’m now completing my second semester, and, while there have been occasions I have doubted my decision, those two weeks in New York finally confirmed it for me. I don’t know yet what I’ll be doing in a year, but looking around me at the UN a week ago, I expect I’ll be happy with where I end up.
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