For international students at the University of Oregon, finding job experience that pairs with their field of study can be a difficult path to navigate. That’s why the UO established the collaborative International Student Career Alliance four years ago to advise and support international students in their professional pursuits.
Because work experience can enhance the value of an undergraduate degree almost exponentially, it is often essential that students find internships, volunteer opportunities or jobs while they’re studying at the undergraduate level.
This year, the career alliance is expanding with the recent hire of an alliance manager/international student career advisor, Bartholomew Kassel. Additionally, the alliance’s intern, Haozhe Li — a sophomore international student from southwestern China — has crafted a prototype for an international student job-shadow program with the help of his mentor, Courtney Ball, the student engagement and communications manager at the UO Career Center.
“In my mind, ISCA is a group of professionals and active students who are passionate about helping international students in our career development,” Li said. “Our members collaborate and work on many projects that I believe will remarkably aid and positively impact the international student community in our campus.”
Through his internship with the alliance, Li has produced job brochures and handouts for fellow international students and has designed the alliance’s icon, webpage and Facebook page. The professional experience he is getting with the alliance is the kind of involvement that the coalition wants to replicate for fellow international students in other capacities.
“I appreciate that people value my perspectives as an international student here, which helped me build my confidence and accomplish much more,” Li said. “I would love to support and help inspire more and more international students here at the UO.”
Many international students have the ability to take advantage of their immigration visa benefits, which provide them with the opportunity to work on and off campus, depending on the specifics of their visas. A large part of the career alliance’s goal is to broaden the general understanding and awareness — both for campus employers and for international students — of these benefits.
This is done primarily through the alliance’s partnership with the UO Career Center.
That partnership has produced six subcommittees, made up of alliance members from different departments at the UO, that focus on six areas of international student support: communications, curriculum and instruction, networking and cross-cultural integration, access to OPT/H1-B international student-friendly employers, part-time employment and campus engagement.
“(The career alliance) exists because there is a clear need to better educate students about and prepare them for these opportunities, as well as educate campus and community employers of this diverse and global workforce at their fingertips,” said Abe Schafermeyer, director of International Student and Scholar Services within the UO Office of International Affairs. “ISCA aims to support international students by providing the resources and direction necessary so that they are able to gain the experience necessary toward achieving their professional ambitions.”
Listening to the experience of international students is essential to understanding how the alliance and the committee can help them succeed, said Ethan Mapes, an international student adviser and the liaison between the Career Center and the Office of International Student and Scholar Services.
“I often do find that we can be doing more to support the professional development of our amazing international students,” Mapes said. “We have such an impressive and ambitious international student population at the UO, and I’m confident that through the collaborative efforts of ICSA we can offer top-notch support to these students, who will in turn bring much value back to the UO campus and community.”
—By Nathaniel Brown, University Communications intern