Employment opportunities for foreign students
If you have a student VISA to the US, you can apply for any on-campus part-time job for up to 20 hours per week during the terms. International students can work full-time or up to 40 hours per week during vacations. On-campus employment is available to students within the campus. On the other hand, you can also choose an off-campus location that is not within your campus but associated with your campus.
If you want a part-time job, you must apply up to 30 days before your classes start. You can contact your DSO of the educational institution to get more information reading the employment while studying. If you become eligible, the DSO will provide a letter of approval. You can apply for a Social Security Number (SSN) with this approval letter to get your part-time job.
If you want to get off-campus employment, in that case, you have to work outside the campus. Only F1 students can apply to work outside the campus. However, to get a job outside the campus, they must complete at least one academic year of their study program. Moreover, the students are offered an outside campus job if they have economic hardship and become eligible for the Department of Homeland Security’s emergent circumstances.
On-campus employment is easier for international students to earn earnings while studying in the US during the first academic year. You are eligible to get a part-time job on the university campus. However, it also may be a different location affiliated with the university. If you want to work as a part-time employee on campus, you must have an F1 student VISA. Moreover, you will be allowed to work twenty hours per week during your term. During the holidays and vacations, you can work as a full-time employee and can work up to forty hours weekly.
The US government offers Optional Practical Training (OPT) and Curricular Practical Training (CPT) to students to get skills to be eligible for getting part-time jobs during their studies. You can apply for OPT after completing nine months of your study. When you get an Employment Authorization Document from the USCIS, you will be eligible for a job according to your study genre. The OPT course allows you to work up to 12 months in total to work as a full-time worker and 6 months as a part-timer worker.
Curricular Practical Training or CPT allows an international student to work off-campus. The student to enroll themselves n the program must have an F1 VISA and a relevant job letter to get the authorization. The job must be related to your course of study. There is no work hour limit in this work program. However, the student will be allowed only a part-time CPT during the term.
