Student loans hover over your head and an insecure future looms after graduation. Sounds familiar for many students who are counting days on fingertips for the upcoming graduation. But international students face a completely different deadline date when it comes to job hunting after graduation.
According to the IIE report release, the enrollment of new international students for the first time at a United States university increased by 7.5 percent over last year. In the 2013-2014 academic year, a total of 886,052 international students were studying across different universities.
These students start from competitive exams as SAT, GRE, GMAT, TOEFL, IELTS that test their aptitude, English language skills and knowledge base. This is then followed by a college admission process, which is not transparent and is based on multiple factors.
Flying away from home after traveling more than 8,000 miles, international students are set to embark on a new struggle. While they might be adjusting to a new culture, they are forced to adjust to problems as home sickness, learning to cook, living by themselves and a new schooling system which is different from the education system in their home countries.
After surpassing these struggles, they are faced with the next hurdle of starting a career in U.S. International students pay twice the tuition fee, pay for a visa status to study in the country and have limited employment options of working on campus only during school.
A majority of the companies ask a common question to applicants: are you eligible to work in the U.S. with a work authorization? Despite paying for nearly everything, these students are rejected based on work authorization.
Many employers don’t want to waste their time on a candidate who will require extra paper work, time and cost of sponsorship. For many international students, their candidacy ends the moment they mention their visa status — regardless of their resume and GPA. These are not illegal immigrants, but students who have earned a legal visa status.
Electrical engineering graduate student Varsha Dwajan said she is familiar with the tribulations of being an international student.
“Start-up companies call to say they love your profile and interview you,” Dwajan said. “They later reject you saying they are too small a company to sponsor.”
This goes to show how much time and effort international students have to put in compared to their domestic counterparts.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reported receipt of almost 233,000 H1B petitions, which allow U.S. employers to hire foreign workers for specialty occupations, this year, well in excess of the limits for the cap of 85,000 H1B work visas.
There is a bright side, as there are big employers like Facebook, Google and Yahoo whose CEOs have formed a lobby for American immigration reform.
In an editorial for Washington Post, Zuckerberg said the whole country will benefit from more H1B work visas.
“To lead the world in this new economy, we need the most talented and hardest-working people,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We need to train and attract the best.”
“Given all this, why do we kick out the more than 40 percent of math and science graduate students who are not U.S. citizens after educating them?”
Industrial engineering UH alumnus Karthik Thiyagarajan said that from personal experience, he can say that getting a job in the U.S. was one of the hardest things for him.
“You won’t get calls — if you get one, they’ll say no sponsorship — that your friends will get. You’ll be happy after your interview, sad after you get denied, and you’ll keep thinking about it, but never ever lose hope.”
Thiyagarajan encouraged other international stuents to not lose hope, as his H1B was issued this year.
“We just have to stop worrying and be focused,” he said. “Once you get your first one, the rest will fall in place.”
Opinion columnist Aishwarya Gogoi is a petroleum engineering graduate student and may be reached at [email protected].
Who told these students they were entitled to careers in the US? A student visa is just that, a student visa. Nothing more, and nothing less.
I agree with you. If you get assurance of working after student visa, then there is no sense for H1B specialty workers. Everyone will start getting degree from US and will grab a job.
Current system might be little harsh for student coming from outside, but this is there to keep the balance and not to take advantage in any manner. Also, VO are not fools, they validate details very accurately and it takes time.
Writers of articles like this one. That’s who. The job hunt is supposed to be more difficult for international students because it is the law. U.S. employers are legally required to employ employees who are legally authorized to work in the U.S. Preference (is supposed to be) given to U.S. citizens and legal residents. There’s no U.S. law preventing any international student from returning to the country of their citizenship to work.
there is absolutely NO requirement for a US employer to hire a US Citizen before hiring a foreigner. No requirement to look for one either.
And to top is all of because of tax law, it is actual cheaper for an employer to hire a foreign student then an US citizen grad.
US student visa is a piece of bs. Visa officers give visas only to those who pays fees and have below average grades. More often than not they refuse visas to people with excellent grades and univ funding as 214b. It is only the second class students that end up in US.
The whole thing is a mockery. When applying for a visa they must convince the stupid VO that they would return home country after completion of studies. but only 1 in 100 returns. As US govt encourages them to stay on giving them OPT, h1, eb1,eb2 etc. what kind of bs and stupid act of mockery is that.
This is interesting. I feel for these students, although I will say I read am article not too long ago about how many Chinese students cheat on their English proficiency exams to get a visa to the US. It’s a give and take, US citizens should get first pick. Hiring an immigrant should be the last resort, that’s how it is in all countries.
It should be a “last resort”.. but they need, to make it more expense, not less expensive like it currently is.
Of course there are high number of applications for these h1b visas, they are cheaper for companies, in taxes, wages and in benefits.
Its not a Cadillac (H1b_OPT) vs Ford (US Citizen) .. this is what the large companies that lobby congress try to make the agreement out to be and have seen the press pretty much fall for it hook, line and sinker.
What is really going on here is more like, There are 50 apple watches on sale for $299 but usually sell for $399 and have plenty at that normal price.
300 customers show up to buy watch at $299, does this mean there is a shortage of Apple watches?
Of course not, out government has set up a system on Stem employees, especially STEM grads, by tax law, by badly written laws: that companies take advantage of, by lack of oversight. The h1b employees are the Sale Price and the US citizens are the normal price. We can’t blame the employees, who the vast majority come from countries that the average salary for STEM workers are 6k yearly, so of course they want to stay here.
But do we really want to replace all middle class American workers with much lower wage foreign workers? Well, that where this is all heading. People have to go back to their home countries, build them up, not tear down America and Americans.
America has got to stop being taken advantage of, stop being sold out to Elite interest that only goal is to make more profits, to create more wealth for those who already have.
Some who have wealth beyond reason abuse America the most.