It was 2009, I was just graduating college with a degree in hospitality, and I was desperate to find a job so I could stay in the U.S. and do my OPT. What I found instead was an unpaid internship that exploited my skills and my good will and, along with it, a newfound understanding of how to protect my rights as an employee.

Not that it started out that way.

A few months after graduating from college with a degree in hospitality, I was offered an internship at one of the most prestigious hotels in New York City. Although it was an unpaid internship, I was delighted to be part of the team and was willing to work hard.

The evolution of my internship

I had applied to work in sales and marketing, but was initially placed in the housekeeping department.  For the first three months of the internship, I was mostly assigned to manual labor such as vacuuming, wiping mirrors, scrubbing floors, or carrying boxes.

After months of this, however, I was ready for responsibilities that would do more to train me for my intended career path. I decided to talk with the assistant director of the housekeeping department about opportunities to learn more about his role and his day-to-day job routine, and he agreed to train me personally for the next four months. It was a tremendous opportunity for me to finally absorb how the hospitality industry works and to get hands-on experience in running a successful department.

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When I received my admission letter to Mount Holyoke College, I also received a set of documents outlining my financial aid package: a big grant, a much smaller loan, and earnings from my future work on campus.

I had expected loans and grants, but didn’t know much about how on-campus work would help fund my tuition.

It turns out that receiving campus earnings in your financial aid package doesn’t actually oblige you to work, but if you take advantage of the offer, students at Mount Holyoke can earn up to $2,100 per year by working at campus jobs.  If you choose to take a campus job, you get a paycheck every two weeks and are expected to use it to purchase books and other necessities. Campus jobs are actually open to any student, but students with work-study in their financial aid package are given priority in being selected for many positions.

I chose to take advantage of the work-study piece of my financial aid package, and have worked at a variety of different jobs to earn my money.

Interesting jobs

Working as a research assistant isn’t easy, but it’s rewarding (Creative Commons Photo: Stephanie Graves)

The most savvy students can get a job that not only earns them money but also gives them good experience. In my first year at Mount Holyoke, I got a position working as a research assistant for a professor in the Department of Russian and Eurasian Studies. In that job I was able to apply my knowledge of econometrics.  This was a nice first job to have, as I could apply my academic knowledge and skills.

This semester I’ll be working as a research assistant for a professor in the Economics Department. This job is also related to econometrics analysis, so I am really looking forward to it.

To get one of these research jobs, you usually have to make a good impression on a professor or department.  I didn’t have to ask either of the two professors for a job – they asked me after I took their class or did other work for them.

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Someday this would all be mine

I remember the very day I received the letter that I had been accepted as an undergraduate student at Johnson & Wales University. I had big dreams and aspirations about what I was going to become upon graduation from one of the best hospitality schools in the United States. I envisioned myself becoming a successful hotelier; the next big thing in Burma.

I remember when I was granted my student visa after hearing that many other Burmese students had been rejected, I just could not have been happier. The following night I had a fiesta with my family and friends to bid them all farewell, and I had a flashback of all the great times I would be leaving behind in Burma.

When I look back at those moments, now that I am a graduate student at Georgetown University working on my degree in public relations and corporate communications, all I can think about is what I should have done differently.

What I did while trying to land a sponsored job

I thought graduating from an American college would set me up for a career in the United States in my chosen field.  In Asia a bachelor’s degree from an American college would have helped me attain a job without much effort.  But that was not how it worked when I tried to find a job in the U.S.

After graduation I started my OPT (Optional Practical Training) with hopes of pursuing a career in the hospitality industry and gaining several years of work experience in America.  I interned at a New York City hotel for a year, hoping it would later turn into a full-time job. But it didn’t, and it ended up being difficult to find an employer who would sponsor me for a work visa.  I interviewed with several hotels who said they couldn’t consider me if I needed sponsorship.

[What one student learned about finding work experience in the U.S.]

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As you probably know, most Fridays we post a list of upcoming webinars, virtual college fairs, and other free online events of interest for anyone who hopes to study in the U.S. Well, this was a slow week in the webinar world, so instead we found online recaps of two past events about finding a job in America.

Our friend Jose Navarro recently attended a workshop about employment options for international students on an F-1 visa, given by a NY-based law firm and hosted by Berkeley College. He writes:

To be honest, the amount of information and the decisions to make are quite overwhelming. That’s why I would advice, if you’re considering the possibility of starting your career in the USA, is to start thinking about it as soon as possible.

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In May and June, graduating students have the chance to hear highly accomplished professionals speak at commencement ceremonies, and to gather some last words of wisdom to prepare them for life after academia. Commencement is traditionally a time to celebrate the achievement of completing a university degree, and to think about how your education has prepared you for the real world. But, perhaps paradoxically, the commencement addresses that have most stuck with me have been given by people who dropped out of college – Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey.

Although it’s been a few years since they gave their commencement addresses, you can still see their speeches on YouTube, which is where I had the pleasure to listen to them.

Steve Jobs – 2005, Stanford University

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The Department of Homeland Security announced it is expanding the list of science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs that qualify international students for an OPT extension.

The OPT program allows international students to stay in the U.S. for up to 12 months after their graduation in order to work and gain experience in their field.  Students who studied in certain categories of “STEM” programs are eligible to stay an additional 17 months on an “OPT STEM extension.”

According to the DHS press release:

By expanding the list of designated STEM degree programs to include such fields as pharmaceutical sciences, econometrics and quantitative economics, the Department is helping bring the best, most qualified international students to the United States.

Here’s the full list of programs that are eligible for the extension (PDF).

An international student advisor at Michigan State University has made it a personal project to address and redress some of the myths she’s heard from students about the rules for doing your OPT.

In a series of blog posts, Brooke Stodyk examines the regulations around OPT and goes through some common misconceptions about what you can and cannot do. Read more about her responses to the following 8 myths:

1. I must have a job offer to apply for OPT.
2. If I have a job offer, I can get my OPT faster.
3. It’s better to apply for OPT later so that I can have more time to find a job.
4. If I don’t have a full-time salaried job within three months of graduation, I will get kicked out of the US.
5. OPT will start the day after I graduate.
6. During OPT, all jobs must be paid.
7. I can’t travel during OPT.
8. And a special one for PhD students: I can get CPT until I submit my dissertation to the Graduate School, so I’ll delay my dissertation submission to maximize my CPT and OPT possibilities.

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For international students, the job-hunting process is never easy. Even once you’ve figured out the U.S. application standards well enough to land an internship, it does not mean a full-time job is guaranteed – you have to find a company willing to sponsor your work visa (H-1B). A lot of Americans find their full-time jobs as a result of their internships, but for international students it’s much more complicated.

International students who want to stay in the US after completing their education have to find a job – or at least an internship – within three months after their graduation in order to obtain Optional Practical Training (OPT) status, which allows them to stay for another year legally (or up to 29 months for certain science and technology students). By the day that OPT expires, if they are still not able to find an employer to sponsor their working visa, they have to leave the United States.

Wanqing Luo, a senior student at Syracuse University from China, is moving to New York City in May 2012 for a post-graduation internship. Even though Wanqing is still uncertain if her summer internship could help her to land a job, she is excited about moving to NYC, and says she will keep trying and never give up. In the video below, Wanqing shares her internship-hunting story with us.

You can do it! (Photo: Steven Depolo)

At this point in the year, international students like myself are starting to think about what to do for the summer.  If you’re an international student and you haven’t started thinking about it yet, you should.

It’s not always easy to find a good internship or summer job that will provide you with valuable work experience, a good line on your resume, the chance to be in a different part of the country, and networking opportunities in your field.

But here’s one thing I learned from my experience finding work last summer: If you’re capable of getting admitted to an American university, you’re also capable of finding some decent work experience for the summer.  You just have to apply the same dedication in how you research job opportunities and prepare your resumes.

And you should also have the same willingness to rely on the resources available to you, including people who have been through it before.  Having gotten used to relying entirely on myself, I didn’t take advantage of other resources that could have helped me.  In the end I did get a job I really liked working at a school in California, but it cost me a lot more pain than it needed to.

I talked to a bunch of my friends to find out what advice they could give me (and you!) for applying to jobs and internships this summer, and here’s some of what they suggested and some of what I learned through my own experiences.
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CNN reports on how African students in the U.S. view their return home after graduation.  According to the article, Africans who study abroad have a difficult time returning home after their studies because they see fewer job opportunities on the continent.