Bachelor of Arts skills helped ANU alumna negotiate Model UN debates
ANU alumna Jacqui Douglas, (third from left, dark green dress), with fellow students at the Australian Permanent Mission to the UN in New York.
An arts and music alumna of The Australian National University (ANU) has applied her critical thinking and consensus-building skills to negotiations at the Model United Nations Conference in Canada.
Jacqui Douglas, who graduated in December 2015 with Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Music, was among hundreds of students who joined the gathering in Montreal last January.
Although conscious of her broad Australian accent, Jacqui says being a self-employed musician in recent years, coupled with her time at the School of Music, gave her confidence when addressing large audiences.
As North America dominates much theory about international relations as a discipline, Jacqui said she saw the Canada trip as a way of adding a practical dimension to her major.
“I also saw the trip as an opportunity to meet like-minded people on the tour, and to enjoy some incredible city sights with a large group of invigorating young people.”
During her five years at ANU, Jacqui transformed into an effective communicator and also gained a better understanding of herself and how she fit into the world.
Three skills Jacqui developed at ANU proved most useful at the Model UN forum.
“The first is critical thinking because the lecturers I studied under during my Arts degree challenged me to question every idea and take nothing at face value,” she says.
“This was essential at the conference, when I was presented with hundreds of ideas and needed to be able to separate the idea from the enthusiasm of the speaker, and test it objectively for merit, often with short time frames.”
Taking a minor in international relations gave Jacqui an excellent background and starting point about the complexity of the history of diplomacy as it relates to the UN. She fondly recalls tutorials by John Hart, Jim George, Kim Hyunh and Vickie Mason who all stoked her enthusiasm.
“Finally, consensus building was an essential skill for getting one's words included in a draft resolution,” Jacqui explains.
“The way that international relations was taught at ANU in terms of using various theoretical frameworks flexibly to make an argument helped. I owe a lot to Kim's international relations theory class.”
Conversely, Jacqui says the conference impressed upon her the absolute importance of who controls the agenda in any international relations negotiation context. Ideas or proposals outside the scope of the agenda as set by the majority struggled to see the light of day.
The ANU School of Politics and International Relations helped fund Jacqui’s trip, for which she was grateful as it relieved the pressure she was under in her final semester.
The Model UN conference broadened Jacquie’s perspective to share ideas in an international context, and to see the focus and energy brought by all the delegates.
“I would encourage anyone to get involved with UN Youth Australia.”
Since graduating, Jacqui now works in government and also as a musician, performing regularly in Canberra.
Learn how to launch your career in international relations at ANU Open Day on 27 August.