So today we're going to talk about working as an F1 student with CPT and opt and stem opt and
I'm going to break each of those down into three sections which is the timeline for when to apply
for that Visa the rules and restrictions of that visa and then some tips and tricks from having
done it do hate vertical video is this the hill I should die on I don't know let me know disclaimer
I'm obviously not a social student advisor nor a lawyer this is not legal advice so if you have
questions and you want to get the most updated answers go ask for school in terms of the generic
F1 student visa this is the first Visa you'll probably get and luckily it is the one where
they will hand hold you the most and so after you get admitted they will probably just email
you and mail you and you just don't need to worry so much about the timeline because you can just
follow what they say one thing to note though is very early on you'll want to get a Social
Security number because a social security number is required to like work and get paid in the US
and so for me like I think in my first month or so of Landing in the US I into the pain of like
sitting in the office for hours and doing all that stuff but it was so worth it because it's
required for everything else okay F1 tips and tricks um if you are Googling like can I babysit
off campus can I make money from a YouTube channel can I like along those lines the answer is just no
um if you are an F1 student and you're doing any of these like off campus income generating
activities including online businesses in which you work and generate money that is not allowed
under your Visa I'ma just save you a lot of time I know that you're looking for a loophole I've
looked for a loophole I think it's better safe than sorry because the consequences again of
like breaking your Visa is not being allowed in the U.S forever actually but I mean there's like
lighter consequences too but the point is it's actually really serious okay another tip slash
trick these are mostly tricks is that it takes two consecutive semesters before you qualify for CPT
and opt which are visas you have as an F1 student that allow you to work off campus is primarily
what people use them for and so um yeah you need two consecutive semesters if you don't do that it
resets the two consecutive semesters requirement to begin like applying for a CPT or opt Visa okay
so now for rules of the F1 Visa you need to be enrolled as a full-time student and you can only
work on campus so this is like prior to getting a CPT opt whatever you can only work on campus jobs
um and that's very specifically defined for your school so the way to access those is to go into
your school's job portal and they'll have a filter for like on-campus versus off-campus and you need
to do the on-campus ones what I mean by like they have a specific filter is for example let's say
someone's looking for a babysitter near campus that's not on campus but if a school Department
is hiring like a librarian or like you know a TA or something that's usually an on-campus job
in terms of hours you can only work up to 20 hours per week this can be across multiple jobs
but it's Max 20 hours per week during term time if it's not during term time you can actually
work up to 40 hours per week for an on-campus job so if the next year you are coming back as
a student at the same institution then you can continue your job like during the summer so for
example I worked at like a school newsletter and then I also manned the photo booth set
during the summer but only when I was still a student at that school the next semester
okay so let's say in normal cases freshman year is over you've done two consecutive semesters that
means you can now apply for CPT and technically opt but most people save opt for after they
graduate so something to note is that the really great thing about CPT and opt is that you can work
like these off-campus jobs that you're probably really excited about okay so we are on to the CPT
visa and its timeline now just look at your school Portal but when I Googled CPT timeline the school
that came up first said that you should apply up at minimum two weeks before the start date
of your job because it takes their office like a week to process your application this is very
short and definitely earlier is better but yeah if you want to work off campus during the summer
for example after freshman year or after sophomore year or whatever you're going to need to apply for
a CPT visa and apply early Now tips and tricks and again these are mostly tricks I should just
start calling them tricks you can have a CPT visa for up to 12 months now note if you hit 12 months
or go over 12 months then you become ineligible for opt which is again what most International
students use to work after you graduate so that is a bad situation you'll actually if you do
the math out like most people will spend three Summers working after freshman sophomore junior
year and at most you'll do three six nine like months of that so it's actually pretty like hard
to hit that 12 months Mark unless you're working during the school year or if you transfer like I
did and things like that but yeah just remember 12 months if you have to transfer make sure you
don't hit the 12 months Mark now on to the rules and regulations for your CPT Visa so when you
apply you actually have to tell the government how this is integral to your major as well as to your
curriculum and I'm sure your school will help you with this but you essentially justify like this is
what I studied in class and this is how it relates to this internship this is fairly um broad like
I've never seen anyone personally get rejected over having a bad connection between those so like
I said the CPT Visa is actually quite flexible but you are going to need to justify that what happens
then is you're going to handle all these paperwork to your school your school is going to issue you
a new I-20 and actually in that I-20 you're going to be able to see that you have CPT authorization
note that that CPT authorization is for a specific company and a specific duration so make sure
that's accurate you actually can have multiple CPT authorizations for different companies at
the same time just make sure your start and end date are correct to make sure the company you're
working for is correct it's actually tied to that company so we're now on to opt which is what most
of my friends who are international students use to work after they graduated technically you can
use this when you're still a student in school it's just that it eats into the 12 months that you
have which most people do not want there's very good reasons for wanting a full 12 years sorry 12
months with your employer including the fact that it gives you time to apply for other visas anyways
okay so on to the timeline now remember as I said every Visa you do is harder than the one before
it in terms of applying and takes longer and is more like substantial so we're now onto the opt
visa and you can apply up to 90 days before you graduate use kiss I I don't know if people call
that but I call it that it can take five months to respond to you it's really like it really depends
on a whole lot of factors and they have to receive your application at least before 60 days after you
graduate so those are three requirements you have to meet once they've received it and it's pending
you'll probably be in a good spot but you want to apply as early as you can AKA 90 days before the
end of your program also note that at least at my school and I actually think at most schools
it would be a two-step process for application so you do all of this paperwork you send it to your
school and then they give you a new I-20 with um their like authorization for opt and they'll give
you like a list of other requirements that you have to fulfill so then you have to go and do that
whole thing prepare it remember to scan and keep records of all of this and then send that to the
government I'm noting that it's a two-step process because you might procrastinate and then be like
Oh I'm just going to finish the first step in time and then boom the school is going to be like
actually you have a whole other step to complete and by the way it's longer some tips and tricks
for opt okay so after you graduate you can only be unemployed for 90 days at which point I think I
don't actually know what happens I think your Visa becomes invalidated or something but what's also
important to note is that you need to tell you skis directly that you've started your job where
you've started Etc otherwise they start counting your 90 days the website is also pretty disastrous
because there's no login like you can't create account yourself the government has to email you
so make sure that you've gotten that email from the government to create an account to tell them
that you started your job otherwise ask your school about it or you'll be like me where use
case will be like you're been unemployed for 90 days even though I was working um and you know you
now now need to sign a bunch of forms otherwise as you will be like deported note that if you
leave the country after you graduate but have not applied for your next Visa it invalidates your
ability to apply for opt or your next Visa this is just a general rule of thumb actually if you leave
the country and your current student visa expires but you have not applied for your next Visa it's
going to invalidate like the entire process so definitely do not do that okay also fun little tip
so like I said you have 12 months of opt usually like after you graduate from your bachelor's for
example but if you go for another degree like your Master's you get an additional 12 months
okay so now rules and regulations of your opt like I said it is 12 months and one of the very cool
things about this Visa is it's actually extremely flexible which as you know is kind of rare
um so for example you can work multiple jobs you can work contracting jobs where you're not a W-2
employee you can work for yourself by starting a business you can volunteer and have an unpaid job
and still qualify for opt so I mean that's not a complete list but all that is to say getting the
opt should be simple in the sense that you should be able to find a job within those categories if
you would like to stay in the US and it's actually quite flexible and you should take
advantage of that if you want to however again you have to justify to the government why this
training is directly related to what you studied you'll need to write up a whole thing about it
I'm sure someone will help you hopefully at your school or like the company you work at
um I'm again I don't think I've personally met anyone who's been rejected for having that
mismatch but it becomes the government becomes more and more serious about making sure that
you're fitting into the right categorization based on the what you studied and what you're currently
working in just a minor thing to note but one of the additional piece of documentation you get as
an opt student is your EAD card I talked about this in my last video and I also talked about if
you lose that you have to reapply for your opt you don't just get to ask the government for a
new card because you forgot yours so make sure you protect that card with your life
okay we are on to the fourth and final Visa which is stem opt
um in terms of the timeline for application again you can apply up to 90 days before the expiration
date of your opt Visa which you will be able to see on your EAD card um yes apply as early
as possible which is at that 90 day mark because the government takes a long time potentially to
respond to you so like I've been saying this whole time as you progress through visas they are longer
applications so they're harder to apply for and they become more restrictive so for example with
your stem opt you have to have paid regular employment as in you can't be like a contract
worker a gig worker um working for yourself Etc also you have to make sure that the degree you
have qualifies you for the stem opt Visa the government has a very specific list and you
will just match yourself to that list um but yeah you need to if this is something that you want so
if you want the additional 24 months with the stem opt Visa then you want to make sure that the thing
that you're studying actually qualifies for this Visa based on this list and finally in order for
the company to like let you apply for the stem opt Visa they have to be in the e-verify database I'm
fairly sure they can just like add themselves to this database but if you're working at a smaller
company so like if you're not working at Google if you're working at a startup and they don't know
this stuff or you're the first International person they've hired then I would definitely
way in advance like six months in advance tell them that they need to be e-verify an e-verified
database company and get them to go through that process okay on to rules and regulations for the
stem opt Visa like I said I probably should have started with this it gives you an additional 24
months if you studied one of the majors that qualifies under the list that the government
has so that means if you let's say study computer science instead of just having to instead of being
able to just work for one year in the US you can work for three years and what's also really great
about that is future visas are often Lottery like the h1b's lottery uh once or maybe twice a year
but the point is the longer you can stay in the US the more chances you have to get that Lottery
like the opt Visa it is a two-step process which I'm just reiterating because if you're a
procrastinator it's going to be sad when you find out you have that second step so you have to fill
out all of this stuff and then you give it to your school and then your school will pen for however
many days and give you back again a new I-20 that has your stem opt authorization from there
this is the Visa that actually requires a fairly substantial amount of work from your company not
only because they have to be in the e-verify database but also because you have to write a
form 1983 training plan for stem opt students essentially they need to write a training plan
um and like justify how this qualifies and all that stuff in other words um as you progress
through the Visas you're going to find that the company is going to need to provide more and more
information in order to qualify you for that Visa which means that less and less companies
are going to be willing to do that because uh it's just more complicated so for example for CPT like
essentially any small startup who just started could probably go through the process versus
for opt it has to be a company that's willing to put the resources up to do all of this stuff
and then um you take this whole package you file it with the government again two-step process and
then you get back a new EAD card which is a stem opt EAD card and just by the way between your stem
opt and opt Visa you can have Max of 150 days of unemployment okay that was a ton of information
but I'm glad I got it out there because I had to live through it every step of the way and
figure it out from scratch because no one really tells you what you need going forward for whatever
reason um so let me just say that if you have any questions on any of these four visas I can talk I
can answer based on my experience and then you might be wondering okay well what if I want to
stay in the US longer this is when at least among my friends most people apply for like H1B or 01 or
eb1 or they go back to school so there's a variety of ways to do it but that is for another video