By Jamal Malik

Let’s face it. The international kids are smarter than us, better looking, more athletic, better dressed, better smelling, less socially awkward, friendlier, better at partying, and are exponentially more likely to get laid. They are their own class here.
Upon first coming to Macalester, I wondered how the international students would adjust to American college life. I was worried enough about college myself and assumed it would be a trying ordeal for our friends from abroad. I quickly found out that the internationals assimilated into our Macalester society much better than we did.
Accepting our Yankee inferiority, we can gain further insight into the international student population.
First, students have sometimes speculated as to why the international students seem so cliquish. The simple answer is that they don’t want our whiteness rubbing off on them. They could inadvertently pick up some of our habits, such as sleeping.

Second, if you have witnessed a conversation between two of our international peers, you might notice that they will frequently switch languages, sometimes even mid-sentence. This is because they know that we are required to have a proficiency in a second language to graduate, so they have to ensure that we can’t decipher the entire discourse on why we are so socially inept.

Third, a first-year asked me why our football team has been historically a perennial shame. The going theory is that the international athletes haven’t figured out yet how to play the game.

Fourth, no one can conclusively say what the Institute for Global Citizenship actually is. Perhaps the mission statement found on the Macalester web site should be elaborated to say: “Our mission is to promote Macalester’s US News rating by building a gigantic house for the international students to live in so they will stop transferring.”

I asked James Gurney ’09 why Americans are outshined across the board by our international counterparts. “There are two main reasons,” he told me. “One: They had to find Macalester. They must really want to be here. Two: If they mess up— do some drugs, fail some classes— they just get deported.” Fellow patriots, if you are tired of looking inferior by comparison, it’s time to plant some of that classic Minnesotan weed in our superiors’ messenger bags.