POINT: Returning Study Abroad Students Have Been Replaced by Body Snatchers.
By Conner Stenner
Ladies and gentlemen of the campus community: inhuman, godless monsters have overrun our beloved university. They have no conscience or moral compass. I know for certain that these returning study abroad students are not who they say they are. The people we once knew have been replaced by soulless, body-snatching doppelgangers.
It’s shocking, I know, but look at the facts. Ever since those study abroad students returned, they’ve been acting suspiciously. Their outfits are the worst example of hipster-eurotrash fashion that I have ever seen. Whenever someone begins a discussion in class, they immediately make the loudest, most unnecessary sighs and start their arguments with “When I was in…”
Outside of class is worse: their bouts of laughter whenever they make a pun in a ‘foreign language,’ their shuffling around as if America is beneath them, the empty, glazed look in their eyes. WE GET IT. You were on a different continent and got all sorts of altered for an entire semester. At first, I thought they were still adjusting to coming back, but nobody can be this much of a tool for this long.
Then it hit me. The reason why these study-abroad students aren’t acting like normal human beings is because they aren’t human! Once I had my epiphany, everything seemed so clear. What would be the perfect way to disguise any changes in behavior and attitude? The study-abroad student’s classic case of “culture shock.”
My fellow peers, we must act fast if we are to rout this insidious insurrection. I propose we get an old-fashioned mob together, with torches and pitchforks, and chase these evil bastards back to where they came from! Who’s with me?
COUNTERPOINT: No.
By Susan Tversky
No we are not body snatchers. And it is despicable that any humans with rational functionings should be so hateful as to think something like that.
When I was in London, which I should add is one of the most culturally rich locations on this fascinating planet, we were taught that we are all not that different. As Elvis once said, “all we need is love.”
The reason we act differently is because studying abroad opened our bodies to different perspectives. From walking along a luminescent Piccadilly Circus at night to gazing at the Eiffel Tower from the Tower of London, there is a rich and succulent adventure for those who go abroad.
This slander about body snatching is very disturbing. I cannot bother with those who use that kind of derogatory and inedible rhetoric. It is both sad and ill-informed, as everyone knows that neuron transferance and skin replacement is much more plausible than ‘body snatching’.
With rhetoric like this, it’s quite obvious why the rest of Earth hates Americans: arrogant, suspicious, tasteless, effective-at-eliminating aliens. This is what the world thinks of you…I mean, us.
I therefore forward a message: Study Abroad. Join our ranks. When you can walk across the Great Wall of Scotland or dine on the finest steaks in Calcutta, why bother with this miserable, pathetic human bod…er…country?
