Glitter, the disarmament of space and tiny French villages: meet two faculty advisors

Y: To start, could you present yourselves? 

S: My name is Svenja, I am currently doing a PhD in neuroscience and I am part of the LIMUN be.boosted delegation. It is a delegation of students from various German universities. Our aim is to teach these individuals public speaking, value-based leadership and communication skills. LIMUN is sort of the final challenge of the programme. 

Y: Excellent, how about you?

M: My name is Mo (Moritz).  I study statistics at Oxford. I participated last year as a delegate and today I am with Svenja training our fellows!  

We went on to discuss Svennia’s PhD and her work around brains. She greatly enjoys the work she is doing ("I love brains") but recognises that taking the route of a PHD is full of challenges; from the massive self-motivation that is necessary to the outstanding organisational skills. In a Socratic way, she adds that constantly going towards more senior individuals in one’s field for help is very important as even after 5 years spent on a subject " you don’t know anything”.  

In a similar vein, Mo says " I encourage people to reach out to people on the field. Yes it’s intimidating but they are usually interesting and interested in you. When I finally got the courage to talk to these people, I saw how much my fears were unjustified and their insights were fascinating.” 

We move on.

Y: Do you have experience as MUN delegates ? 

S: My very first experience was the 2019 LIMUN. I represented the delegation of Poland in the UN Women committee. I made the choice to participate due to a desire to develop my soft skills and my interest in politics. I was quite overwhelmed by the complexity of the experience and of the game. Still, it was a lot of fun and I got to make many new friends as a consequence of my participation. 

Mo went on to describe very similar motivations in addition to his great interest in politics. He participated in last year’s online WorldMUN with a friend of his and described the experience as being great fun. On his specific committee "we were talking about the disarmament of space, a topic I certainly did not previously think about a lot. Discovering such topics and geopolitical tensions you would not have thought of is one of the great things about participating in MUNs". 

We transition to some more personal questions.

Y: What is your biggest non-academic, non-work-related achievement? 

S: I think it’s that, as I moved a lot from country to country as a very social person, I made and kept friendships around the world. Keeping friendships, something that I see as a super valuable part of life, can be a challenging task when there is both physical distance and a lack of free time on both sides, but ultimately it is worth it. 

Y: Thank you for this answer. Same question for you Mo ? 

M: My biggest accomplishment in terms of myself is that I managed to transition from a shy and socially anxious young boy to, after pursuing different youth leadership roles and public speaking opportunities, someone who teaches young people how to express themselves, be better leaders and be inclusive and kind. I’m quite proud I was able to make this change myself and then go on to help others achieve it. 

- We transition - 

Y: What's the best decision you ever made? 

M: That’s a very tough question. * pauses*. One of the best decisions I made is choosing, in 8th grade, to take a youth leadership role. It consisted in organising activities for groups of 5th graders and ultimately, through all it led me to do next in terms of personal development and growing out of my shyness, it was a very good decision. One I love and treasure. 

Y: How about you S ? 

S: It’s a very interesting question as every small decision you take can have innumerable consequences in the long run (readers may be familiar with the butterfly effect). I was thinking way back and came up with a decision that seemed like a very insignificant one at the time but probably changed the course of my life for the better. As a 13-year-old, I took the decision to participate in my first language exchange. For two weeks, I lived with a small family in a French Village and went to school there. I made friends and overall enjoyed my experience. I loved it so much I did language exchanges for the next three years and went abroad multiple times for extended periods. I learned so much from these voyages and gained a lot personality-wise. Really seems like the best decision I took in my life. 

Y: What's the most trivial thing you have a strong opinion about? 

S: I have a strong opinion on glitter. Sure it’s a very controversial and divisive topic but at the end of the day, it is just beautiful dust. Why would anyone hate that? Accept the sparkle it brings, the addition of glitter is always a positive. 

Y: If I were to suddenly drop a handful of glitter on your suit, would you be even happier to participate in this interview? 

S: I would be very lucky if you did. Of course only as long as it is sustainable glitter. No one likes microplastics. 

Y: Let’s see if Mo is as controversial. What is yours? 

M: Sparkling water! I was once asked, " if you could only drink tap water and one other drink for the rest of life, what would it be? ". I was actively thinking about answering sparkling water but I didn’t as I feared I would be immediately killed by my friends *laughs*. Nothing more refreshing than sparkling water, it’s great. ( Svienna, who has been nodding, voices her agreement) 

Y: I see I have two very controversial guests today. I will not push you further on the subject of sparkling water in order to preserve your security. Now, many historical figures have epithets attached to their names such as Alexander the Great and Charles the Mad. What would yours be? 

M: I think I would like it to be Mo The Kind. Now what people usually describe me as is Clever, so like Moritz The Clever. But I would prefer Moritz The Kind, it's the more important one. You need to know me better to find it out. When you say at a party that you study Maths at Oxford, you are immediately associated with a specific image people have in their minds. I would like to be more defined by my personality than by my academic skills. 

S: I’d like Svenja the inspirational *laughs*. Or maybe Svennia the Brave or The Fearless like Jeanne d’Arc. *pauses* People would probably say SvenjaThe Social Secretary because I’m good at bringing people together (we all laugh at this particularly non-medieval-like epithet and I suggest Svennia The Amicable). 

We move on to our final question.

Y: What would the title of your memoir be?  

S: It's definitely too early, too hard to give a good answer *laughs*. I can’t think of anything. I would just call it “ yes”. All lowercase and without punctuation. 

Y:  Love it, how about you Mo?

M: (after a short pause): I would call it “Do not read this, Chapter 3 will make your mind explode”. Obviously, it would be sponsored by Skillshare or something. 

By Yanis Fekar