Highlight: Why Hire an International Student?
WPI currently hosts approximately 1,300 international students from nearly 80 countries around the world. These students help diversify our classrooms and campus by bringing with them wonderful insight, experience, and new ways of thinking. For example, they might look at an engineering problem from a new perspective, tackling a marketing campaign idea from a new audience angle, or using a foreign language to network with other researchers in a different part of the globe.
Not only do international students possess the academic knowledge needed to shine at companies, but they also develop strong interpersonal and adaptation skills through their experience learning a new culture in the U.S. that are easily translatable to the office environment. By living far from home and adapting to a new language and culture, students have proven their flexibility, their willingness to try new things and be unconventional, and their resiliency. Many of our students speak multiple languages and a growing number have lived in multiple countries. These students are highly interculturally aware and globally minded and are well accustomed to forming relationships, communicating, and connecting with others. International students must also be mature and have strong emotional intelligence in order to adapt to the individual lifestyle in the U.S. and distance from their families.
All international students in the U.S. on F-1 student visas are eligible, upon graduation, for a 12-month work authorization called Optional Practical Training or OPT. Students must find employment related to their major, such as a computer science student finding a position as a programmer, or a math/statistics major finding a position as a data analyst, etc. Students apply for this work authorization shortly after they start their final semesters at WPI. The application is completed in coordination with the university and does not require a job offer to start. The completed application is sent to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for adjudication and takes on average 90 days to process. Students are then issued an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) card, which looks almost like a red, white, and blue driver’s license and includes the student’s picture, name, country of birth, date of birth, gender, and validity dates for employment. The EAD is verified by a company’s Human Resource office when they file a new hire’s I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification form. Once students have their EAD cards, they are eligible to work in the United States.
The International House at WPI is always happy to answer immigration-related employment questions, and one of our staff members is generally present to answer questions during WPI’s Career Fair. The best ways to contact our office: 508-831-6030 or ih@wpi.edu. We also encourage employers interested in hiring our talented international students to check out CDC’s online resources on the topic.
