= Premium Content

  • Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Previous

Next

U.S. Expands List of Fields in Which Foreign Students May Extend Stay After Graduation

May 13, 2011, 10:16 am

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has published an expanded list of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields that qualify foreign students for an extended stay in the United States after graduation. The program, known as Optional Practical Training, allows graduates on student visas to work after they receive their degrees. Most graduates are allowed to stay on for an additional 12 months, but students in specific STEM fields can stay for 17 months beyond that. In a press release, the White House said the expansion was made to deal with shortages of certain high-tech scientists and technology experts.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

  • Print
  • Comment
  • http://www.samplereality.com Mark Sample

    I should point out that I didn’t mention an obvious use of the Mendeley iPad/iPhone app: to get your Mendeley library on your iPad. That is, you don’t need Zotero in order to use the app, or Mendeley, which are separate services. If Mendeley is your main reference manager, then the app is your perfect solution for accessing and (with the latest version of the app) editing your citations on your iOS device.

  • adam3smith

    There’s a thread on the Zotero forum with some suggestions on iPad workflows: http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/16892/ipad-workflow/ , though quite clearly they’re very cumbersome still – but the one-way direction of the Mendeley-Zotero sync essentially means that using the Mendeley app is not much of an option if you want to keep using Zotero as your principal reference manager.

    The hope is of course that now that the read and write api are online, smartphone and tablet apps will follow – though my understanding is that those would have to come from 3rd parties, I don’t think Zotero central has the capacity.

  • 609zr

    I would like to edit this quote to read as follows:  embrace talented students from local universities, who enrich the nation by working in science and technology jobs and fueling innovation in their chosen fields here in the United States. 

    Educators need to empress upon students from an early age that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics will advance their own careers as well as the development of America.  Continued education and recruitment of foreigners at the expense of our own students leads to greater unemployment, and espionage.  Remember Los Alamos and dozens of others?

  • burger1234

    You are correct. The only problem is that admissions groups discriminate against local students in the name of diversity.  Another problem is that they don’t have as many requirments for foreign students as they do for American students.  I have never met one student from Asia who had volunteer experience, work experience, or any other extracurricular activities on their resumes (unless it was a complete lie they made up to get accepted).  However, for American students, they require all and more.  On top of that, most Asian students can’t even speak English as they cheat on their tests and even employ people to write their admissions papers for them.  I know, as I have been an educator in China for the past 7 years and have always had to deal with cheating.  It is disgusting how little American universities know about cheating from asian students , but yet they accept them blindly to STEM programs because they supposedly have good math.  The good math thing is also a myth. 

    Asian students only have one advantage; they know how to cheat and show face.  US admission groups need to stop discriminating against American students and demand more proof that these massive amounts of Asian students flooding US universities are actually qualified enough to be there.  I know that some of my student were accepted to George Washington University, Maryland University, and Boston University even though I know for a fact that these students are cheats and are seriously under-qualified.  This is one reason I am finished with being an educator in China (I have recently changed career paths.)

  • 11333651

    It sounds as if you’ve had unpleasant personal experiences that you are using as the basis for biased generalizations. 

  • daniel_von_flanagan

    While I completely support this program (and liberalized visa policy in general), there are many fields on this list for which there is clearly no shortage of fresh PhDs.  In some there are dozens or even hundreds of recent PhD applicants for every open position.  On the other hand, every time we hire a foreign national we have to file some nonsense avowing that the person is superior to every available US candidate, so perhaps the steady receipt of such statements has convinced ICE that it is actually true.

  • burger1234

    Really?  I speak the truth, and you make claims I have some an emotional response that is biased? Go and ask any American PhD how much volunteer work they did before and during undergraduate school.  Then ask someone from China.  I saw everyday in my previous work Chinese students cheating on tests and their teachers allowing such cheating.  Yes, my response is due to my experience with Asian students, which means I’m sure I know how unqualified most of them are.  The student I know who is going to attend Boston can’t even speak English; her American boyfriend helped her write her papers.  I have to speak Chinese to her.  And, this is just one examle of many during my 7 years here.  My “bias” is an accurate one.  Your bias is an uninformed one. In the meantime, American students are still discriminated against by US University addmissions groups.   

  • burger1234

    It is easy to see that your reponse is very biased, and a good example of how people in your position discriminate against better qualified American students.   

  • daniel_von_flanagan

    Not at all.  We hire based entirely on how well candidates fit our needs, and pay no attention to their country of origin.  Most of our hires are American.  The problem is that the Dept. of Labor requires that to hire  a foreign national we must “[demonstrate] that there
    are insufficient qualified U.S. workers available and willing to perform the
    work at wages that meet or exceed the prevailing wage paid for that occupation in the area of intended employment,” which is a different standard from “best fit for our department and needs.”  So we assert the former in the documents we file when we mean the latter.

    Whyever would we discriminate against a “better qualified” American student?  We want the best person we can hire, and American candidates have the extra benefit of no added visa work for us.

  • katisumas

    Burger, I hope you’re not talking about Asian American students, right?

    As for foreign students, and particularly Chinese foreign students, just think about this when you buy stuff made in China:  the trade imbalance is helped by having Chinese students come to the US and pay out of state tuition without financial aid.  It’s a drop in the bucket, but don’t we need all the drops we can find since we gave up on manufacturing just about anything?

    If you do actually speak Chinese, there are lots of opportunities in business for you….. 

  • burger1234

    You are talking about economics; I am talking about academics and academic honesty. 

    A couple points:
    1. I do speak Chinese, as most foreigners who live in China do, and I did find a job in a company using my Chinese.  Thanks for the suggestion, though.  This has nothing to do with what I said.
    2. The US is still the largest manufacturing nation in the world in dollar terms.  It has mostly been automized, thus less people than before.  Anyone who claims the US doesn’t make anything must be an English major. 
    3. The trade imbalance won’t be helped by poor quality students flooding our universities.  In fact, it hurts the quality of our universities and takes up space for more qualified students from other countries or even Americans. 
    4. Asian Americans are Americans.  Typically, Asians and Whites are equal in educational attainment and test scores, but one has a lower sampling when statistics are involved.  The results are obvious if you understand statistics. 

    I believe that American universities should be for Americans first.  If there are spaces left over, they can be filled with high-quality foreign students, but those students need to be held to the same standards as Americans: extra curricular activities such as volunteer work, travel experience, sports, music, clubs, and general work experience.  If they don’t have it, they are not as qualified as American students. 

     

  • http://www.atyourservicecaters.com Laguna Beach Wedding locations

    Thanks for providing very useful information such a nice
    post please do keep posting..

  • http://www.aandbconcreteconstructionllc.com Concrete in Virginia Beach

    NFP fellowship holders can no longer extend their stay for a one-year period to find a job as a highly skilled.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1660519158 Bob De Schutter

    I found a solution that works a lot better for me than the Mendeley app. Also, if you’re a bit handy with Python scripting, this solution could be improved to work two-ways (which I don’t need myself but which might be interesting to other people).

    I’ve written an article about it on my blog. It’s only fifteen minutes of work to setup:
    http://www.bobdeschutter.be/?p=498

    Personally, I still prefer Zotero above Mendeley. One of the reasons for that is that Zotero allows users like me to come up with custom solutions if a feature is missing. :-)

Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.