Harvard Launches New Job Platform for International Students

 A New Job Platform By Harvard

Harvard University has been committed to looking after its students even when they are on the verge of completing their studies and leave college. Harvard has a dedicated office of career services through which it helps and has helped a lot of its students for securing a job easily. 

The problems faced by international students:

U.S. government has recently made a lot of changes in their visa processing for almost every country. It ultimately led to people facing numerous challenges for securing a job in the U.S even after graduating from an institution like Harvard. And moreover, students who had E.U. passports were facing extreme difficulties in acquiring a visa for U.S. jobs due to the Brexit. 

What happened is, international students who want to apply for a job in the U.S must be in line with the F – 1 student visa regulations. Any international student who does not meet the criteria for the F – 1 student visa regulation will be denied to work in U.S. And anyone with the F – 1 visa can apply for one of the two programs – CPT (Curricular Practical Training) or either OPT (Optional Practical Training). 

There, are rules and time frame determined regarding completing any of the programs. For CPT the timeframe to complete it is before graduation. But for OPT, 12 months are granted to complete it comfortably when the student is in College or doing post-graduation. But OPT generally is a lengthy process to go through, and that is why it makes sense that most of the students opt for CPT. 

The new platform, what is it? 

A new platform which is introduced by the Harvard Office of Career Services is called Interstride. Interstride is developed by foreign students itself because they can understand the complexities faced by any international student who wants to apply for a job in the U.S. much better than any other student. 

Interstride allows a student to inquire about different companies individually and their job recruitment process along with the number of visas the company sponsors for international students. Interstride is a guide for everything such as what can a student expect when they go to a particular country and how they should prepare for it and also provide many different guides on different aspects of going abroad for working. 

Ciao to an old friend:

Harvard office of career services said goodbye to their old partner GoinGlobal when they brought Interstride to the institution. GoinGlobal was their tool for searching international jobs earlier. 

An official from OCS stated that GoinGlobal had been an excellent partner in the past for helping students of Harvard university to land jobs internationally. The only shortcoming it faced was that it was designed to help students who want to go abroad but then also helped students who are international students. But the decision to start with Interstride was because it not only supported the students who wanted to go abroad and then help international students too but was also designed by the people who have been International students themselves. 

What is in store for the future?

Interstride has many promising features. It has already started showing its positive effects on the lives of Harvard students. But what is the future with Interstride? Is it the solution Harvard was ultimately looking for? 

The answer is a little challenging to determine. Since there is no doubt that Interstride will be very helpful for many students, but at the same time, it will have its limitations. 

The limitations can be things such as if a student applies for a job in the U.S., he will most likely be asked whether he is eligible to work in the U.S. or not? And then there is the issue of sponsoring of visas. Most of the U.S. companies ask an international student whether he/she would like them to sponsor their visas, but the thing is, most of the U.S. companies don’t do that.

The question is just a confirmation for the visa applicant that they have to manage on their own for the visa sponsorship. And then there is another problem too which is that most of the companies don’t accept international students in the first place. Go through the below link and apply online for jobs and internships.

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