Post-Grad Life Prep #1: OPT Workshops
- Oct 10, 2016
- 4 min read
If you’re an international student graduating in the 2016-2017 year and you’re not certain about going straight into a master’s program, then you’re probably looking into OPT, or Optional Practical Training. OPT is temporary employment for practical training directly related to the student’s major field of study, i.e. your opportunity to stay in the US and work for a period of 12 months after graduation (rules apply).
I’m graduating in December, so my post-graduation processes have already begun. Since I do not want to directly enter a master’s program, for me OPT is the best option. I’m going to document this process as I go through it for you guys, and attending the workshop was the first step.
If you want to apply for OPT after graduation, you must attend at least one OPT workshop hosted by ISSO. The next two workshops for this semester will be November 14th in the Lurie Conference Room, and December 2nd in the Grace Conference Room. (There’s also a STEM OPT extension workshop on November 30th in the Grace Conference Room, but we’re going to just stick to OPT for now.)
I attended the OPT workshop on October 6th and here’s the first thing you need to know about it: it’s more informative than anything you’ll find online. Why? Because if you’re about to graduate as an international student, you can bet that the ISSO office knows about you, and knows everything specific to you. Patricia Doherty, or Patty, takes care of undergrad OPT applications, and Amanda Connolly handles grad student OPT applications. Patty and Amanda and Veda and Jess, our ISSO staff, are willing and able to cater to your needs, no matter how specific they are, and chances are very high that they already know exactly what about your application will be different from other people’s applications. That’s the kind of thing you won’t find online, which is probably why they want you to attend a workshop before you apply for OPT.
The workshop covers all the basics of OPT application. It starts off by explaining the types of employment opportunities available to those of us on an F-1 visa, which are on-campus employment, CPT or Curricular Practical Training, and OPT. Then it moves on to the two types of OPT, pre- and post-graduation, and then to the actual application process and the rules of being on OPT. The approval process can take up to 90 days, and although the workshop touches on the timeframe between which you can apply, you could always go to Patty or Amanda separately and discuss which time would be best for you based on what you need and want to do after graduation. They’re there to help, and they serious about the fact that no question is a stupid question!
There are a lot of things that can get messed up in the online application process. You have to submit a whole bunch of documents and figure out dates and payments, but ISSO is going to give you a checklist of documents to work with, and more than that, they’ll look over your application carefully to make sure you have everything in order before they send it off to the US Citizenship and Immigration Service. This way, fingers crossed, your application won’t be rejected. The statistics for rejection are actually very low and the ISSO office will do its best to make sure yours doesn’t fall into the tail end of that statistic.
After you drop off your application package with the application and all required materials, you will attend a Q&A session with ISSO the following Friday so that you can ask all your questions and the ISSO staff can review all the rules of OPT with you. That’s another requirement for you to complete the application; attend that Q&A.
The best part about the OPT workshop, really, are the questions. You don’t always have questions to ask yourself, but someone else might, and those could apply to you. Do I have a different SEVIS number now because I attended high school in the US? (Answer: yes.) That’s the kind of question Patty or Amanda will be happy to answer. What happens if my visa expires halfway through my OPT period? (Answer: nothing, as long as you don’t leave the country with an expired visa.) What if my passport expires before I can get my OPT card? (Answer: better get it renewed ASAP.) If you forgot to ask something, you can always email Patty or Amanda later, or stop by the ISSO office to talk to them directly. Jess and Veda are equally available to help you, although they don’t handle the application process directly.
So seniors and grad students, you need to check out an OPT workshop sooner rather than later, especially if you’re still waffling on whether or not OPT is for you. Talk to Patty or Amanda, and feel free to ask all the questions you want. If you have a problem, any problem, there’s a 90% chance that our ISSO staff has dealt with something like it before. They’ve been doing this for a very long time, you know. As a Clark student, my advice to you is to utilize your resources, and our ISSO staff are some of the most helpful people in the Clark administration. Graduation can be exciting, but it can also be scary, and they really make the process so much easier.
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