Immigration ban raises travel concern

By Alameina White, Transcript Correspondent

In trying to keep immigrants out of the United States, President Donald Trump has given some of Ohio Wesleyan University’s international students more reason to stay.

Selam Weldu, a freshman from Ethiopia, said she is not going home this summer and may not go home until she graduates.

Weldu said going home would be unpredictable.

“The way things are, everything is just crazy and uncertain,” Weldu said.

Weldu said that many of her friends have had their visas rejected. Some had completed the process and were approved for a visa, but later rejected for unexplained reasons.

Weldu said that she doesn’t want to risk not being able to come back for school and her family supports her decision. Weldu made arrangements to stay with relatives in the meantime.

However, Iman Ashraf, a freshman from Pakistan, said she will not let these occurrences keep her from going home.

“If I’m going to get rejected for my religion or my nationality, I’m done with here,” Ashraf said. “I’m not going to be part of a place that despises me.”

Ashraf said she’ll take her chances going home but does not believe the president will keep her from coming back. Ashraf said if he does, she believes the school will help the students as best they can.

“They don’t discourage us,” Ashraf said. “A lot of Pakistanis are still applying for their visas and being accepted.”

Ashraf said that the university has supported the international students on campus on similar occasions before.

When the FBI emailed Pakistani students, asking to meet with them to discuss possible ties with certain groups, Ohio Wesleyan rejected the meeting and spoke out for the students said Ashraf.

President Rock Jones said the school empathizes with the students and their concerns.

“I am very concerned for our international students and their experience,” Rock Jones said. “I understand their concerns. It is an uncertain time with issues regarding immigration.”

Rock Jones said that Dean of Students Dwayne Todd will soon be announcing a way for international students to stay on campus over the summer.

Rock Jones said that international students can feel free to express their concerns to the university.  The university gives absolute support and encouragement to all international students.  There are many people on campus who are knowledgeable in these issues and want to hear from students about how they can help.

International students talk turkey

By Shamayeta Rahman, Transcript Reporter

To most Ohio Wesleyan students, Thanksgiving is a time for turkey and time together with the family.

However, those who are thousands of miles away from home are often left to spend this American tradition on an empty campus.

Most international students and some domestic students who live far away choose to stay on campus during Thanksgiving break, finding the long journey too unfeasible for such a short trip.

Although there are programs that set up these students with local families who welcome them into their homes for Thanksgiving Day dinner, most are left to celebrate on their own or with fellow peers who are staying behind.

Residential Life charges $27 per night for anyone choosing to stay behind over break.

Despite the extra cost, there are no on-campus food options available during the break, so these students often have to eat outside or cook for themselves during this time, making it even more expensive to stay behind over break even if they have no other options.

“It is OK for the most part, except on Thanksgiving Day when everything is closed,” said senior Urvija Rishi, an Indian international student who stayed behind for break.

Senior Kyul-El-Lee, a Korean international student, agreed to having the same problem, but spoke about how
he went to a Korean Church nearby on Thanksgiving Day.

The church usually hosts meals open for everyone, and Lee said he really appreciated the combination of traditional American and Korean food they served there.

“It is really nice that they host these events for the community; it really helps us to feel a lot more at home when [nobody is] around,” Lee said. Hamburger Inn also serves a free Thanksgiving meal for the community along with a few other churches in the city.

Unlike Lee, Rishi spent her Thanksgiving cooking cuisines from her own culture using the time and opportunity that the break provides to make it a more personalized holiday experience.

“Even though we don’t celebrate it back in India, Thanksgiving makes me homesick seeing everyone back with their families,” Rishi said.

“I cooked butter chicken and biriyani to recreate that feeling of home even though I was in my residence hall.”

International students pressured to find jobs post-grad

With graduation looming, seniors are beginning to feel the pressure of uncertain post-grad plans. International students—if they wish to stay in the country—must find a job within three to five months of graduation, adding extra stress to this already tumultuous transitory period.

According to the Institute of International Education, a non-profit that releases an annual “open doors” report, the number of international students at colleges and universities in the U.S. has increased by 8 percent “to a record high of 886,052 student in the 2013/14 academic year.”

“I decided to go to school in the U.S. because I believed that this country has the best higher education in the world,” said Ibrahim Saeed, a senior from Karachi, Pakistan. “However, there’s a cliff for [international students] after graduation.”

According to current U.S. immigration policy, international students studying in the United States on an F1—or student—visa have three to five months after graduation to find a job under their student visa. This work authorization under the student visa category is referred to as “optional practical training” (OPT), which allows them to stay in the U.S. for 12 months, with the possibility of an additional 17 months after graduation if their major was in STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) fields.

According to Dorota Kendrick, OWU’s assistant director of International and Off Campus Programming (IOCP), “OPT serves as a great opportunity for students to gain practical experience in the field that they have just invested the last four years of their life studying.”

“Immigration permits them to do this on a student visa without having to worry about obtaining a work visa,” she said.

Adding another obstacle to employment, international students must find a job directly related to their major. This can pose a problem for students with liberal arts degrees.

“Students from the U.S. can take any job that they are offered, and while that might not be ideal they are not restricted to certain kinds of jobs that relate to their majors,” senior Megan Buys said. “International students have extra laws that they have to follow, and I think trying to color within those lines creates a different kind of pressure for many students.”

Buys hails from Pretoria, South Africa and said she has applied to several graduate schools, hoping to extend her student status. However, Buys also has applied to several jobs as back up options, but has run into issues finding jobs directly related to her history and psychology majors.

“Even though I have a lead about a writing job with a publishing house, I might not be able to take it because creative writing is my minor, not my major,” she said. “I think this is extraordinarily unfair given the fact that I have eight writing credits on my transcript that are from all three of my focus areas, not just English.”

Kendrick also shares Buys’ discontent with the current system.

“In the decade or so I have been doing this, it has been frustrating to see some students struggle with the major specific limitation to their job search or even the limitation of not surpassing the accrual of more than 90 days of unemployment,” she said. “The transition from college life to work life is stressful on its own, and it seems unfair that additional limitations are placed on international students in this already stressful time in their lives.”

For other international seniors however, these limitations have served as motivation to begin the job search early.

Mainza Moono came to Ohio Wesleyan from Lusaka, Zambia and will be graduating with an economics major and management minor. Moono said he already has an investment banking position lined up post-graduation, thanks to an internship in wealth management he had last summer. Moono said he received this internship with the help of the economics department’s internship coordinator.

“Personally, I don’t feel the pressure,” he said. “The finance industry is very competitive, and the job application process happens very early, and very fast. The best, and most competitive positions are already filled by December, of which half were filled early in October. I got my job offer in early October 2014.”

Moono said he views the restrictions on major related positions fair.

“We spend four years studying something we think we are passionate about,” he said. “That’s a lot of time to spend on something you don’t want to eventually pursue a career in. The policy is competitive, and forces graduates to focus on a career they have the most experience in from an education standpoint.”

Similarly, Saeed—a computer science and economics double major—has accepted a technology analyst position with JP Morgan Chase, who will sponsor his work visa. Saeed attributes the experience he gained through his Summer on the Cuyahoga internship last summer with his procurement of this position.

Other seniors though, are still in the process of looking for jobs.

“There is more pressure on me to find a job than the average graduating senior because even to spend more time in this country after graduation, I need to have a job,” said senior Zain Kahn, who wants to work in the U.S. before obtaining his Master in Business Administration and returning to Kiratchi, Pakistan to start his own company.

“I do have the option of going home and working [after graduation] but the professionalism and opportunities found in this country are hard to match in Pakistan,” he said.

Ohio Wesleyan does provide resources to help international students prepare for their postgraduate plans.

International students are automatically enrolled in a mandatory course (worth .25 units) UC 99, or international student success, taught by Kendrick. Two of the seven sessions of this course are specific to F1 regulations.

“I cover, in very thorough detail, all the work authorization options including OPT,” she said. “Once per term I also hold work authorization options for F1 student workshops for those students that need a refresher or have questions. I also hold another meeting for seniors, called senior transitions, where among other topics, I discuss OPT requirements and application procedures.”

While IOCP works with international students’ visa concerns, the Office of Career Service (OCS) helps students with their job search.

Nancy Westfield, assistant director of OCS, said on a whole, international students utilize the resources OCS offers earlier in their college careers than the average student.

“Since their job search is inherently a little different, [international students] do start thinking about what they are going to be doing with their major and building up their resumes sooner than the average student,” she said.

Despite these resources, the underlying frustration with the system remains.

“As a university we are so accommodating but with Immigration it is very black and white and life isn’t black and white,” Kendrick said. “From my perspective, one of the many advantages of a liberal arts education is that it allows students to gain valuable skills and a greater depth of knowledge from multiple disciplines that will lead them to excel in an array of different fields after graduation. The major specific limitations that Immigration imposes seems counter intuitive to that purpose.”