By: Kenya McCain
Being a college student is hard.
Everyday struggles make young adulting complicated, from consistent empty pockets to school debt and loans, and finally struggling with mental health and identity.
These struggles are normally called growing pains for a typical college student, but is it the same for international students? Do international college students go through similar struggles or are they different?
These exact questions are the reasoning behind this story. At McPherson College, there is a large international student population that involves home countries from all around the world. Though we have this great foreign exchange program, we have yet to explore the full potential that comes along with it. So, I interviewed current college students at McPherson College to share their stories of life, from beginning to current.
8,617 miles away from McPherson, Kansas is the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Lubumbashi lands are known for their natural resources and tasty meals, like the well-known dish Pondu with Rice. This is also the home country of where well-known student Becky Masengu was born. Growing up, Masengu spent her adolescent years in Lubumbashi, where she lived amongst a small, close-bonded community where everyone is considered family instead of neighbors. In this small community, she attended a small religious school that was non-technical and held strict dress policies. Though Masengu only lived in Congo for a short time, she still strongly remembers the struggles her family dealt with daily: electricity issues, water runs to the community pounds, and lack of job opportunities. It wasn’t until Masengu turned five that her family made an impactful decision to move their seven children to Johannesburg, South Africa for more opportunities. South Africa was “more of a change” and memorable but still not the easiest as there was still struggle.
Living in Africa, Becky Masengu was always aware of the limitations in the healthcare systems. It was hard for her to see hospitals struggling and people not getting the urgent care they needed, so she made the choice to act and major in the health field. Though she didn’t want to attend just any college, she wanted to study abroad and receive the best knowledge to bring back home to help save lives. So, when she connected with a friend who was in the United States attending college to get an outside perspective, one school in particular caught her attention with their health science scholarship. After months of dealing with paperwork, phone calls, emails, planning, and some praying…Masengu received a letter of acceptance into McPherson College!
Like any first-year student, Becky Masengu was full of different emotions. She was happy that she was able to begin working on her dreams and future. But, as an international student, she feared living in a new country with new culturally different people, and being far away from her family. Her dreams seemed to hide behind these fearful dark emotions. Soon, she was infected with the most contagious and mind-affecting illness, home sickness. This illness started to influence her into quitting and taking the first flight home. She was also dealing at the time with loneliness, cultural shock, and fast changes of learning new things like how to use technology for class assignments. With being overwhelmed, she called her motivational mother, Mrs. Masengu, a woman who is known to be a fighter and who never gives up. After talking with her mother, Becky Masengu knew she had to keep fighting, not for herself, but to make her mother proud.
Since then, Masengu has made a name for herself at McPherson College, as she was awarded the African Union Award in 2024. This award is a recognition given out every year to one remarkable international student specifically from Africa, who shows leadership and hard work through their academics. Masengu has worked hard as a full-time student worker, helping many McPherson students at the Student Government Association International Center, a science lab assistant, a board member on the International Student Association, and a Resident Assistant on the ResLife team. These activities allow Masengu to fulfill her goal to, “Make friends and find your people.” For example, on the ResLife team she is able to work with other student workers, like Arthur Nardy, who also has an inspirational story.
Arthur Nardy is a junior international student worker and athlete at McPherson College. Similar to Masengu, Nardy works multiple jobs on campus as a board member on the International Student Association, a cafeteria helper, a tutor, and of course a Resident Assistant on the Reslife team. But, Nardy is known for his hard work as a tennis player with his twin brother, Marcus Nardy. So, as Hannah Montana would say it, the college gets “the best of both worlds,” since we get to know not one, but two Nardy brothers.
The Nardy brothers were born and raised in Tours, France, which is the northwest part of France, until his family relocated for personal reasons to Eauze, France once the twins turned 18. Growing up in the country of love would seem to be the perfect life from the outside; France has the best coffee shops, smooth wine, welcoming faces, tasty cheese with bread, and beautiful landscapes. Though for Arthur Nardy, life was different in France; growing up in a family of five wasn’t easy. Even though he loves his parents that work hard for him and his two brothers to have a nice childhood, he constantly bumping heads with them. This caused tiny ripples within the family at times, but during the good times Arthur was busy with schooling at a catholic academy, and trying different sports like boxing, swimming, basketball, though he was terrible, and tennis.
Tennis was the sport that the Nardy twins decided to take off with and try to play at the next level: the college level. The twins recorded their matches and took their highlights to a tennis portal of available players looking to get connected with college coaches. This is where Coach Keiran “KP” President, the head coach for McPherson College, recruited the Nardy brothers and they signed to join the dawgs.
Signing to commit to a college overseas would seem scary, like Masengu felt her freshman year. But for Arthur Nardy, it was pure excitement because this was his time to make decisions on his own. During his first year at McPherson College, it wasn’t as easy as butter like he expected. Nardy had a difficult time being a good team player. Instead, he was labeled as someone with “bad behavior” and didn’t prove himself worthy of being on the main line up to play. When an opportunity for a playing position opened due to an injury, Arthur Nardy took advantage of this, but still was missing the team dynamic aspect. For example, if Nardy lost a match, he would shut down and not cheer for his teammates. Even though many people believed Nardy was full of himself, he was just being hard on himself and wanted to be the best for not only himself but for the team.
On top of this struggle with tennis, Arthur Nardy also had to deal with some struggles with speaking English and expressing himself clearly, and cultural shock; like with the cafeteria food being different but also messing up his stomach. Plus, adding a psychology major to his already planned sociology major, based on his liking of learning more about the brain. Arthur Nardy had so much change within such little time, he felt as if everything was going wrong. Finally, he decided to make a change for himself, after having a sit-down with Coach KP about general outside improvements. From that point on, Nardy decided to do some personal growth and change his leaf.
Since that day, Arthur Nardy changed his perspective on his life and became the kind-hearted, patient, and understanding guy that does puzzles in the library for fun! This is the Arthur Nardy that many McPherson College students know. Now, he hears only compliments from not just his coach of his improvements but from everyone, and for Arthur that’s the “part of me I’m [most] proud of.”
Even after overcoming struggle, he is currently having to overcome another obstacle in his junior year. His twin brother, Marcus Nardy, made a hard choice to graduate early before him and start a new chapter in life. The twins have been inseparable since being born; they have leaned on each other for guidance throughout their time together at college. But for Arthur Nardy’s senior year, he’s going to miss his brother and the advantage of being around him. Time will tell how this large change will go for the Nardy brothers.
Having the ability to share both Masengu’s and Nardy’s stories has been such an eye opener that no matter the distance, college is a hard chapter in life for everyone. But, like Arthur Nardy said, “No matter what you do, it’s up to you to make the experience right.” Students can do this by finding their people or starting a simple conversation even with some diverse from them. Many international students love to share their experiences from a different cultural setting; sharing about home meals, traditions, and about their families. At McPherson College, there are many clubs, organizations, and programs that host events with the goal of building connections among their student body. These activities are meant to encourage students to branch out and find new people. Hopefully, the college will continue to involve students to encourage diversity.
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