Podcast: International Services, Part 2: November 2009
This is EducationUSA Iran
Adviser: Welcome, this is the continuation of the previous podcast. In the previous podcast we were talking with Fanta Aw of American University about services an international student office provides. In this podcast today, Fanta will discuss specifically issues related to work for international students as well as visa and English language issues.
Adviser: What kind of work or work-study opportunities are available to them?
Fanta: Students who come to generally study in the U.S. are allowed to with their immigration status to work on campus during their first year. On a lot of American campuses working on campus means you may be working at a library, you may be working in a bookstore, you maybe working doing research being a research assistant with a professor. Those some the different ways in which students work on campus. And on our campus we have a lot of international students who work on campus. You can work up to 20 hours a week and during any vacation time you can work more than 20 hours a week. But that’s the opportunities available to students during their first year. Once students have been here for about a year or more, depending on their program, they are allowed to do internship for credit. If they are doing internship for credit, they could be placed with a company or non-profit organization or an international organization where they will be working with the organization as part of their academic program, because we believe very strongly in what we call experiential learning. You are not only learning in the class but we want to know if you are able to apply that learning in the real world. So students have the opportunity to work by doing internships, are one of the other ways that students are able to work while they are here.
Adviser: During summer and spring breaks when everyone here has plans with their family, do you have programs and activities for international students?
Fanta: During spring break, a lot of international student generally like to travel within the United States because this is such a big country and there is so much diversity that we often really encourage our students while they are here to explore different parts of the U.S. So a lot of our students tend to travel during that time. We also organize during spring break what we call alternative break program and these programs involve Americans and many times international students where they actually travel and they work with communities where they go. Some of them travel within the U.S. so for example a group may decide to go the New Orleans, to look at the issues of poverty in New Orleans, to learn more about what is happening there. Other groups may decide to go to Thailand and learn about issues of immigrant communities. Some groups may decide to go to places like Colombia, and learn what is going with U.S.-Colombian relations and so forth. So those are some the initiative that allows students to really engage with community activism and community work. That’s some of the ways.
If they are not traveling and they are going to be here in the Washington, DC, area, we organize a lot of programs. We will take them to downtown DC maybe to museums to different things that are going on in Washington those may be some of the things that we are able to do for them while they are here. Same thing with during the summer. Student who stay tend to take classes while they are here during the summer because they have 2 ½ months so that gives them a lot of time to take some of the classes while they are here.
Adviser: Very interesting. Can you help students with their visa questions?
Fanta: Yes. The international students and scholar services office have advisers with expertise related to student visas. So when students have any questions related to their immigration status or their visas, they can come and talk to an adviser, we can answer probably 90% of the questions that they come to us with. If it is something that is so unique, we have relationships with people within the government and we’ll try to get answer to those questions for them.
Adviser: That’s great. Do they have English language difficulties and if yes what kind of help do you provide to improve their English?
Fanta: Most of our students incoming are really strong students. And as strong students they have very strong academic backgrounds, but English may not be their first or even second language. So with that often when they first come to the U.S. we give them an assessment test. The reason we do that is because we want to know what are their areas of strength in English so that the first semester in particular we can make sure that they are taking classes that are appropriate for their levels. So you may have a student who’s really strong with reading and comprehension but may not be as strong in writing. So once we do the assessment then we can have an evaluation and then we share that evaluation with the academic adviser so that we can make sure they are placed in the appropriate level while they are transitioning here.
Also we make sure through our academic support center, we have tutors, that can help them, so if they trying to figure out, how do I write a paper here in the American system because it may be very different from my home system, we have people in the academic support system who can help them with the structure of papers, can help them with how to begin to do more research with their papers. If they are undergraduate students they will generally take the college writing program with our American students so that they can learn how to write better in English and write better within the American system. So those are the ways we provide with support to make sure that they are able to improve their language and writing skills.
Adviser: That’s great. Thank you so much for your time. I think we are done with the questions.
Is there anything you would like to tell our students to add to what you have already told us?
Fanta: You know, I think a lot of time students in making the decision to come to the U.S., it is an important decision. It is an important decision for the student and it is an important decision for their families. And I know that what families in particular and students want to know is if I come to the U.S. what are the support services that they are going to make sure that I am able to achieve my dreams. One of the things about the educational system here in the U.S., really important for the students to know, that once they’ve made this important decision they are not alone. Once they get here they will be able to expect and should want as much support as possible. Because that’s what universities are here to do is to help students succeed and to be able to reach their goals.
Adviser: Thank you very much
This is a production of educationusairan.com.
