Student Resource Guide
A quarter of USC’s student population is international, and yet this community is often underrepresented in the stories that are told at the University. In our special “A Long Way From Home” supplement issue, the Daily Trojan aims to spotlight the perspectives of international students who shape the culture of USC. Find all the stories here.
The following organizations and tools provide international students with answers to questions about visas, financial issues and their job search.
Design: Mia Isla | Daily Trojan
USC-specific resources
USG’s Guide for Undocumented Students
The college landscape is an uneven playing field. With nearly 100,000 undocumented high school graduates every year, the vast number of undocumented students preparing for college will have to transition without the same access to financial aid and scholarships as many other students.
However, undocumented students are not entirely excluded from scholarships — the Undergraduate Student Government created a resource list for such students, which include scholarships for undocumented students such as the Los Hermanos de Stanford Scholarship and the La Unidad Latina Foundation Scholarship (specifically for Latinx students).
The guide also lists specific search engines for finding scholarships, including the Act on a Dream’s database of national scholarships for DACA students. The Salvadoran American Leadership and Educational Fund also provides scholarships for undocumented students, focusing on those with Central American and Latinx backgrounds.
Interstride is a career services page that has partnered with USC and other higher education institutions throughout the country to help graduating international students in their career search.
Interstride’s Visa Insights feature allows students to look up which employers have sponsored H-1B visas in the past. The Country Insights tool provides descriptions of the economic states of countries across the globe and links to important information including health recommendations, cost of living guides and job postings.
Graduates who aren’t sure what country they want to live in yet can use the Jobs tool, which searches for opportunities at H1-B sponsoring employers both in the United States and internationally. Interstride also provides advice from its employees on job search strategies and posts frequent webinars for students looking to enter any professional area, with topics ranging from job search optimization by country to education on how to begin a startup company.
Students can find the link to Interstride on the “Explore Resources for International Students” page on the University’s Career Center website.
On USC’s Career Center website, International Student Careers provides guidance to international students hoping to work in the United States. The site hosts similar resources on H-1B-friendly companies to Interstride, including a tool that outlines the best global cities for tech jobs. For those frustrated with H-1B, ISC has a number of educational blog posts that explain the processes that help students get jobs step-by-step.
One such post is a guide to finding jobs abroad, giving students a defined checklist of goals to accomplish on their search that will make them more attractive to potential employers. This checklist style is replicated in other posts that describe how to stand out at an international career fair, how to write an American CV and how to ace an informational interview.
In addition, students who subscribe to International Student Careers’ free newsletter receive the International Student Job Search Guide, a 33-page document that gives aspiring professionals a strong base for their job search, including two sections that explain H-1B in extensive detail.
Joining communities of students with similar experiences offers an intimate way to build a second home. The International Student Assembly is a group for students from all countries and backgrounds and hosts events such as Global Cultural Month, Globefest and other activities. Students can also join cultural assemblies with more specific demographics, such as the Asian Pacific American Student Assembly and Latinx Student Assembly.
Resources for any college student
Edupass – International Student Loan Finder
Navigating which loans are available can be a daunting task for international students. The International Student Loan Finder on edupass.org, a site dedicated to informing international students in the United States about financial resources available to them, allows students to learn about a variety of educational loans. After the student inputs whether they are a U.S. citizen, have a U.S. cosigner and other information related to their degree, the International Student Loan Finder provides a list of loans the student qualifies for.
Attending universities in the United States can be very expensive — finding relevant scholarships can be crucial to affording higher education. Internationalscholarships.com provides a comprehensive list of scholarships international students can qualify for in addition to grants and loans. Students can use the site to discover more than 1,600 scholarships, which can then be filtered to find major-specific scholarships.
The Institute of International Education
The Institute of International Education is a multifunctional organization that finds many ways to accomplish its mission statement, which is “to help people and organizations leverage the power of international education to thrive in today’s interconnected world.” Its top service is managing global scholarship programs, but it also uses its vast network of 1,600 higher education institutions to connect members across the world.
The Institute of International Education’s website connects students to potential opportunities, including fellowships and internships in countries abroad. The website also publishes news and studies on developments that impact international students and launched a fund earlier this month to provide $1 million to aid international students affected by the coronavirus.
NAFSA’s Financial Aid for International Students page
The National Association of Foreign Student Advisors’ sole mission isn’t focused on assisting international students, but its page for international student financial aid is useful. Financial aid is scarce for international students, so NAFSA designed a page that provides information on many common financial concerns and links to sites that specialize in those areas.
The site outlines many methods of funding one’s education, with links to pages that provide scholarships, grants and loans. There’s also a section on tax credit, providing students with the resources to find out when they are tax-exempt.
NAFSA also provides guides for international students to educate them about the costs of going to school in the United States and to help them organize their spending. The glossary of financial aid terms defines any potentially confusing wording that students may encounter on their paperwork, while the simple budget spreadsheet breaks down everything a student will need to spend money on.
Read more about how international students adjust to USC here.