Beccy on Tour - My Semester Abroad in Raleigh, NC, USA

Rebecca Schaden 0:09
Hello, guys, and welcome to my podcast "Beccy On Tour" about my semester abroad in Raleigh, North Carolina in the United States. My name is Beccy, and I'm your reliable source into the exciting world of American college life. So if that sounds like something you'd be interested in, stay tuned.

Hello, guys, I hope you had a great week so far. First things first, from now on, in addition to the streaming option, my podcast will also be aired on WKNC. You can find it on wknc.org if you click the "listen" button. Those of you who are based outside of the US will also need to press the "stream WKNC HD-2 directly2 button" but that's pretty much it. My first episodes will be aired from Sunday, October 8 to Tuesday, October 10. And then you can look forward to new episodes every Wednesday at 7am Eastern Standard Time. To all my friends and listeners from Central Europe, that will be 1pm your time. So you can join me during lunchtime. And as always, if you have any questions or experience difficulties in finding the podcast, drop me a DM on Instagram and I will do my best to help you out. But I can't promise anything because as you know, technical stuff is not my strongest suit.

But let's get started with today's episode. This one is going to be kind of an educational episode. But I think it's going to be very interesting and helpful, especially if you want to work in the United States but if you're currently holding a student visa. And it's actually funny, because in my first episode, I already touched on that. And if you remember, I told you guys that it's really hard to work here in the United States if you're not an US American citizen. But I learned a lot of new things since then, some of which I'm going to share with you now. And the most important one is that it's actually not that hard to work in the United States.

The process for getting permission to work on campus, for example, is pretty straightforward. By on campus, I mean every employment that is executed at NC State and paid by the NC State payroll system At NC State, all international students are eligible to work on campus, they just need to complete the required paperwork and apply for a social security number. But let me start at the beginning and walk you through the required steps in case you would like to make notes. It definitely helped me not to forget anything.

When you get an email that you got the job, yay, congratulations, they will let you fill out a hiring package form with basic information about the job, your major, year and the number of hours per week you'll be working. You have to be careful not to exceed the weekly limit of 20 hours that international students have. Step two will be you have to contact the Office of International Services. At least that's what it's called here. There might be different names and divisions at different universities. But usually every university has some kind of international office. And that international office is usually responsible for helping international students with things like that. You will fill out another form and at NC State we'll call it "J 1 student employment authorization request form" and that will have to be approved by your adviser. Step three will be to reach out to the payroll office. And I know it sounds like a lot guys, but honestly, don't worry. It's really really hard to forget about any step in the process because you get like 1000 emails and email reminders, which is great of course in so far that you don't forget an important document but it can also be pretty annoying and stress you out big time if you get like three emails a day saying you should make an appointment, but at least it encourages you to get everything done as fast as possible to kind of escape the email terror.

For the appointment at the payroll office. You will need to prepare a couple of documents. Don't worry, they will give you a list of the required documents that you need to bring to the appointment. I, for example, just had to bring my passport, my I-94 form, which is used to track my traveling history in the United States and states my visa expiration date, and my DS-2019 form, which is a record issued by NC State to confirm my exchange semester here at State. That is it. And the appointment does not take longer than five minutes, I didn't even have to schedule it, I just showed up. And I still didn't have to wait in line. And the best thing about it, it's on campus. And also the people were really nice. So really nothing to be anxious about. The only thing you need to keep in mind, you must complete this step within three days after your first day of work, so it's best to get it done as soon as possible.

And last but not least, you need to make an appointment at the Social Security Administration Office, which you can do online on their homepage. I will put the link to the homepage in the description of this episode. And you know what guys, I'm going to provide you with all the links I found were useful when completing these steps, because it can be pretty confusing to wrap your head around. Again, I had to fill out a form and a few questions and upload my documents pretty much the same ones I showed the payroll office, if I remember correctly. And in the last step, you can schedule an appointment at the local office. Keep in mind that you have to show up there in person. So make sure that you choose an office close to where you're located. At least if you're in a state like North Carolina, where the public transportation sucks. I still had Uber there because it would have taken me one and a half hours per bus. But fortunately, it wasn't too expensive. The appointment went down pretty smoothly and quickly as well, because I had already given them the required information and documentation online. I also didn't have to wait to talk to a staff member very long, so we kind of got right to it. And again, she was really friendly and polite and didn't ask any weird question. So you really don't have to be afraid.

And that was it for the on campus employment process. So definitely not as daunting and tedious as I had pictured it initially. It's actually the off campus employment process where it gets a little bit more difficult, but it's definitely also doable. But it is important to point out here that it's going to depend on your visa type for how long and in what field you can work in the states and what the process is going to look like.

So basically the two most common visa types students hold J1 and F1 visas. As I already mentioned in my introduction episode, I am currently holding a J1 visa, which is classified as an exchange visitor visa. And therefore I can work in the United States for as long as I study here, which in my case would be something like four months. The maximum amount of time J1 visa type students can work in the United States are 18 months for undergraduate students and for graduate students and 36 months for PhD students and the program they will be engaging in is called academic training.

F1 students are individuals who are getting their degree here from NC State University, so they need to be enrolled at U.S American college or university and they need to be full time students. That being said the employment needs to be a required part of the curriculum of the degree they're pursuing and they need to stay enrolled at university during their work experience. That's why the process for getting work authorization is more complicated for F1 visa students as it is for J1 visa students. However, F1 visa students have the option to engage in a curricular practical training, which allows them to work full time at an off campus company during one semester without having to attend any classes. This is also known as a Co Op program at NC State. I will not go into more depth about the F1 visa student employment requirements as most of you who are planning on spending a year or semester abroad in the United States will most likely be holding a J1 visa. But if you would like to know more about this topic, check out the description of this episode and I will drop a link there.

If you want to do an academic training, there are three main steps you need to do to get started. At first you need to reach out to your advisor with details about your job offer including the job title, start and end date, work location, number of working hours per week salary if it's a paid position, and name, address, email and phone number of the employer. In the next step, you will need to contact your academic advisor of your individual graduate or undergraduate program which in my case is Business and the Poole College of Management and they have to fill out a "J1 academic training recommendation form."

Also keep in mind that you need to maintain health insurance for the duration of the academic training. And last but not least, your application needs to be approved by the Office of International Services. This process is specific to NC State. So other universities might have a slightly different process. But it won't differ largely from this one, because essentially, the requirements for J1 students to work in the United States are the same.

I know this is a lot to take in, but I tried to break it down for you and to make it as simple as possible. I just wanted to show you that even when you're in the United States as a student, it is not impossible to also work here. That being said, companies might sometimes be reluctant to hire international students, mainly because they're not familiar with their visa types, and they have simply no idea how to go about hiring them. If you want my advice, if you find an internship that matches perfectly with your qualifications still apply and impress them, show what you bring to the table and don't worry too much about being an international student, because in the end, companies want someone who's motivated and willing to work hard. And if you can show them that you are, your chances of scoring the internship are pretty good. Also, be patient with hiring managers. I was at the Career Fair last Friday, and most of them have literally no clue about the specifics of your visa type. So just take the time to explain it to them and be open and transparent about it and answer any questions they might have truthfully. Trust me, that will get you pretty far.

Well, well. We have arrived at the end of this episode. I hope you found it interesting and helpful. I am very passionate about this topic as I would love to stay longer here in the States. And I'm hopeful that it's gonna work out for me. I will definitely keep you up to date. That being said, Have a great rest of the week and I will talk to you next week. Bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai