Student’s Union Trip to the UN

by Verena Zyla

 

The Student Union is just a few weeks old but with some support from the administration we managed to arrange a trip to the United Nations in Vienna.

I had been to the UN before and therefore the organization was quite easy. A simple email to the Visitor Centre and all we had to do was to make up our minds as to which lectures we would like to attend. Usually groups go for two, but we decided on three: the Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

So on Friday morning our train left at 6am and – to my surprise – everyone showed up on time! Three hours later we found ourselves at the Vienna International Centre (VIC).

We were the only group to attend the lecture on the OOSA which had its advantages. We got to ask a lot of questions and got to know about a part of the UN that most of us had not been aware of. We then moved on to join another group from Munich for the UNODC and IAEA lectures. Here, too, questions were strongly encouraged and while we learned a lot, the lectures were also quite entertaining.

Another highlight was to have lunch at the UN Cafeteria. I personally was delighted to see amazing vegetarian options, and the meat-eaters among us had no reason to complain either. The diversity in the cafeteria was fantastic, though luckily we more or less have that kind of diversity in every class at McDaniel.

A young man from Germany then picked us up and led us through the building, answered all our questions, joked here and there and finally a long day came to an end.

The ‘celebration’ on the train back to Budapest was well deserved!

Thanks to the administration who made this trip possible and to all those who attended and made the trip such a success!

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