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A lot of people think that international students can not get an internship because usually internships pay you money and international students are told they cannot earn money while working off campus. What I did was I volunteered, that means I didn’t get paid for two of my internships.
Two of my internships I volunteered. I spent my summers going to this non profit organization’s office and working on their magazine. I didn’t get paid for that but it was a fantastic experience and I learned a lot.
The other option if you’re thinking, “I can’t do that, I can’t work for free for the whole summer” is something called ‘Pre-Opt. Most people finish graduating in 4 years and have a 5th year in which you are allowed to work. That year is called Optional Practical Training. Some people think, “Why can’t I just use some of that time before I graduate and that way I can work 40 hours a week over the summer, do a great full time job for 3 months, learn a lot and then I can get that work experience and put that on my resume?” You can absolutely do that, it’s called Pre-OPT. That means you can do that 3 months of full time work before graduation if you want to get paid for your internship.
Another way to get paid for an internship is to relate it to your major. Let’s say you’re an accounting major and you get an internship at Deloitte and Touche (one of the big 4 accounting firms). If you can tell the department of accounting that this internship is related to what you study in class, they can make it what is called an academic internship. That means that the internship that you are doing actually counts as a class.
By doing that they will count it as one of your classes and that way you will not waste any of your OPT time, you will still be able to work for a full year after you graduate and you will get paid for that internship and it will count as a class which is so many great bonuses in one. If you want to do an internship for free like I did by all means go ahead, it was a great experience for me. If you want to get paid then consider doing it as a class during the semester. Then you will probably have to write a paper for one of your professors so that they can review and say yes you actually learned something from this internship related to your major.
Those are a bunch of different options and if this sounds confusing don’t worry about it. The people on your campus, the international student services office will explain all of this in great detail to you. What you should know is that just because you are an international student doesn’t mean that you cannot work during your college years. There are some restrictions but you can do some kind of internship whether it’s paid or unpaid. You can work after you graduate for up to a year, that’s paid, that’s money you can make and experience that you can get. Don’t think about what you can’t do think about what you can do!
There are plenty of options. Research them, talk to people on campus and you will be set like any American student would be.
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