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SCENE
| JAN. 28 | Send features tips
Foreign Service
For many international students,
America can be a land of searching for opportunities.
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| Photo Illustration: The Shorthorn:
Billy Smith II |
| Computer science engineering graduate
student Eswar Vermuri is one of the few international
students who has found employment on campus. |
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By Danny
Woodward
Contribution to The Shorthorn
Eswar Vemuri is one of the lucky ones.
He’s an international student with a job.
He came from India to earn a master’s degree in computer science
engineering. He runs the register in the University Center Bowling
and Billiards and once held two jobs.
His situation is far from typical.
International students can face huge obstacles in finding employment,
mostly because of strict U.S. government regulations.
Those on F-1 visas, the customary ticket into the country for international
students, are ineligible for work-study positions because the federal
government funds that program only for citizens. And F-1 holders
can’t work off campus for the first nine months they’re
in the country.
That leaves only on-campus, non-work-study jobs, and there are precious
few of those — exact numbers aren’t kept — for the
estimated 2,500 international students.
No non-work-study jobs are currently open, according to figures
in Student Employment Services.
“The problem is the government says you can have only one purpose
in the U.S. at a time,” said Joanna McClellan, associate director
of the International Office. “They’re here to be students.”
Many of these students say surviving in America is more difficult
than anything they’ll face in the classroom.
Ramkumah Navaneethakrishnan will graduate in December with a master’s
in chemistry. But in the year and a half since he left India, he
has yet to collect a paycheck.
He doesn’t hesitate to ask a new acquaintance if he or she
knows of any work.
“I keep looking,” he said. “Every day, I go everywhere
on campus. They always tell me ‘no.’ ”
Because work-study students make less money, university departments
often fill those positions first. After that, assuming any work
and money are left, other students are hired. Often, only temporary
work remains. And such jobs are first come, first served.
At the UTA Bookstore, Director Bill Coulter employs 50 temporary
workers during the back-to-school rush. All 50 are international
students. Likely within the next week or so, they’ll be out
of work again.
Arturo Elizondo, a career counselor in Student Employment Services,
said he sympathizes and tries to help.
“I know it’s tough for them,” he said. “They’re
eager to work.”
For many international students, the Land of Opportunity ends with
the campus.
To work away from UTA, even after their first nine months, international
students may face extensive paperwork. Unless they find an internship
in a field related to their studies, they must prove to the Immigration
and Naturalization Service unforeseen economic need. Among these
may be loss of student financial aid, a large increase in living
expenses or outstanding medical bills.
Working off campus is an option only if students have tried for,
but can’t land, an on-campus job, McClellan said. If approved
for such employment, no international student may work more than
20 hours a week during long semesters nor drop below full-time enrollment
status because of a job.
Vemuri, the Bowling and Billiards employee, shares a two-bedroom
on-campus apartment with three friends. Among them, he’s the
only one with a job. He left wealth in India but lives a different
lifestyle here.
“There’s no privacy,” he said. “It’s very,
very crowded.”
But it’s the way he, and many other internationals, must live.
Many don’t work, so they depend upon those who do.
“I was just lucky,” Vemuri said. “I’m no different
than most of them.”
Navaneethakrishnan, who says he won’t quit looking for work,
survives off the money his family sends once a semester to cover
school. And with the little that’s left, he barely covers his
living expenses. That money doesn’t go as far in the United
States: Fifty Indian rupees equal one U.S. dollar.
“You can stay in India and have no opportunity, or you can
come here and have all the opportunity in the world,” he said.
“One job. That’s all it takes.”
Meenakshi Sankaran is proof of that.
Sankaran, an electrical engineering graduate student, has a new
outlook on life. She already has one electrical engineering degree,
as well as one in telecommunications. And she finally has a job,
too. She serves food in the Connection Cafe.
Sankaran has been in the United States since August and was running
out of money. For the first time, she’ll pay her own rent next
month. And for that, she’s proud.
“I had tried every possible place,” she said. “It’s
hard. You look forward to moving to a new country, but then you
can’t get a job. It’s somewhat frustrating.”
Still, international students aren’t strictly opposed to the
rules that limit their work load.
Younjoung Choi, who is Korean, says she’s in the United States
to earn a linguistics doctorate. She doesn’t work nor does
she want to.
Vemuri also says some limits aren’t a bad thing.
“I think they’re good rules,” he said. “My main
priority is to study. That’s why I like my job, because I can
study while I work. If they didn’t limit it, you’d just
be off working everywhere. But at the same time, it’s really
tough. I’ve got to pay $1,400 per class, so I’m forced
to work.”
By the time he graduates he hopes he’ll be working not because
he has to, but because he can. He wants to work in software, and
he doesn’t care where.
For now, it’s just a matter of getting that job.
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