Several news articles have been published since 3rd April 2017 discussing the new rule affecting H1B visas.
Here are 3 things Indian students aspiring to study in the US should know.
1. More Visas for Students: This rule primarily affects India’s IT outsourcing industry which is the biggest user of H-1B visas. Of the top 10 companies sponsoring H1B visas, 89% visa applications are from outsourcing IT companies. This causes an acute shortage for H1B visas on a whole, reducing chances for Indian students who are directly employed by US companies , filing for H1B. With stricter regulations in place for Indian IT companies, more opportunities will open for students with advanced degrees. In other words, more visas will be available for students
2. More Jobs for Students: As this rule affects lot of outsourcing employers – these jobs need to be filled in US itself. Due to the lack of high skilled professionals with advanced degrees in US especially in the STEM areas, these jobs will open for students. As Indian students do have F1 visa with OPT – shortage of workers due to visa rules will help Indian students looking for jobs.
3. US Economy is booming and needs skilled knowledge workforce: Today US unemployment rate stands at just 4.7% lowest in 15 years. Stock market is up 15% since November 2016 – More and more investment is being made in businesses – all this means much more demand for skilled knowledge employees – all of which are in short supply today. Students should take advantage of this situation.
So Indian students doing MS in US are in reality, probably going to benefit from rules.
Drafting your Statement of Purpose should be considered to be, essentially, a communication exercise, which you ought to take very seriously. Why do we say this? Well, for two reasons: first, going forward, there will be many such situations in which you may have to interact with others by means of the written word. And second, subject-matter knowledge is not enough. You would need to find an effective way to communicate your message so as to evoke the desired response from its target reader(s).
Below are a few tips to draft a decent SoP:
- Cover all important points: make sure you mention your academic accomplishments and major achievements, if any, along with papers presented, seminars and workshops attended, projects undertaken, and internship experience you have had, in their order of importance.
- Highlight your soft skills: exhibiting good communication skills will enhance the impact of your academic performance and may even prove to be decisive if you happen to be tied with another applicant for admission whose academic performance is identical or equal to yours.
- Avoid clichés: As far as possible, avoid words like “team player”, “leadership qualities”, etc. Try and find better ways to showcase such qualities or accomplishments. For instance, you may mention how effectively you worked with others in a close-knit team to successfully complete your project in a timely manner.
- Keep it simple: It’s a rough draft. The beautification of language can come later as your suggested draft takes on a more sophisticated shape.
- Start early: Some people tend to put things off until the last moment. On the other hand, starting early will give you more time to reflect on what you intend to include in your SoP. It will also minimize the risk of inadvertently leaving things out, enabling you to present a comprehensive narrative and present a strong case for your candidature.
- Get help from experts: There are experts around who can help you draft an attractive Statement of Purpose thereby increasing your chances of getting admitted to the university of your choice. So, avail of their expertise and ensure that your SoP is a winner.
An overwhelming majority of Indian students who travel to the US for higher education belong to the Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) category. For the annual H1B quota of 20,000 visas reserved for this category, about 30,000 applications are usually received. On the other hand, against 65,000 H1B visas allocated for non-STEM applicants, three to four times that number apply.
Therefore, an applicant for an H1B visa from the STEM category invariably stands a much better chance. That is why several students from the non-STEM category, even if they find a job in the US after graduating, have to leave for their country of origin as they fail to acquire an H1B visa. Another factor that works in favour of STEM students is that their OPT (Optional Practical Training) is valid for 36 months, which entitles them to three attempts at seeking the coveted H1B visa.
During those three critical years, they get paid in US Dollars by their employers and recover the cost of their education. That is why we have advised students belonging to the non-STEM category, and their parents, to carefully consider these possibilities before investing in higher education in the US. Most STEM students find good jobs in the US, and statistically speaking, only about 10 percent return to India.
There are, of course, several compelling reasons why students prefer to stay on in the US. They get accustomed to a much more comfortable lifestyle, cleaner surroundings, a pollution-free environment, honest dealings, a high living standard, reliable security, and a good income, to name a few of them. Moreover, genuine opportunities for top-quality education and lucrative careers in research are also attractions that most Indian students cannot resist. Therefore, their reluctance to return home is perfectly understandable.
Personally, I am of the considered opinion that this cannot be called “brain drain” at all. In fact, I would go so far as to say that as brains are in such excessive numbers in India, there is nothing wrong with looking at them as potential exports. One’s ‘janma bhoomi’ and ‘karma bhoomi’ need not be one and the same. I believe there is no logical reason why one’s motherland and the land where he lives and works should be identical. People ought to be free to exercise their fundamental human right that entitles them to seek an environment they consider conducive to the realisation of their long-cherished dream.
Perhaps it is pertinent to point out here that, generally, Indian students who live in the US end up remitting some of their earnings to their next of kin back home. Such routine remittances add to the foreign exchange reserves of India. Besides, non-resident Indians also share with their relatives and friends back home new ideas thereby sowing the seeds of new enterprises. Some such NRIs have founded technology-driven companies in their home country which have generated revenue and created new well-paid jobs. Therefore, I see it as a win-win situation.
In the US education is closely associated with philanthropy. Individuals do not own universities. The famous Carnegie-Mellon University is a case in point. Its governing council may have a couple of members who belong to founders’ families but the university is essentially managed by a Trust. Grateful alumni donate generously to their alma maters.
The US Government offers generous grants to universities. Deserving students get attractive scholarships from universities. Students are provided every possible opportunity to work as teaching and research assistants and take up campus jobs to earn so they can lighten their financial burden. American culture respects the dignity of labour. Working part time at a McDonald’s outlet is not looked down upon or considered below one’s dignity.
In India, the founders of educational institutions, which have mushroomed all over the country, are scarcely concerned about the quality of education they impart. They often find it difficult to appoint good teachers to their faculty. On the other hand, in the US, Nobel laureates are professors in universities. Therefore, it should hardly come as a surprise to any of us here when India lags woefully behind the US in research. In America every university is a centre of research.
Sadly, in our country, education and research are thought to be mutually exclusive. We seldom encounter researchers teaching at our universities. In the US, on the other hand, university professors are actively engaged in research Out there the course curriculum is revised every year to meet the ever-evolving requirements of industry and the job market.
Classrooms in the US are not crammed to capacity but have far fewer students, making it possible for professors to pay individual attention to every student. Each graduate student is assigned a professor as his or her graduate advisor, and the two actively collaborate to configure the course content of the student by selecting the most appropriate courses for that particular student. This method and approach is unique to the US. Is it any wonder, therefore, that our students entering the US educational system, realise for the first time that education can be enjoyable, and become genuinely interested in the process.
In India the student is evaluated almost entirely on the basis of his or her scores in examinations. In the US, on the other hand, evaluation is based on the level of the student’s subject knowledge. This has a direct bearing on the employability of students as job opportunities in the US are directly linked to the education or training they have had at university. The student automatically qualifies for a job if he has performed well academically.
The United States of America presents a wide range of exciting opportunities for higher education and employment to ambitious young Indians. However, this indisputable fact was not widely accepted in Pune, when I first pointed it out, way back in 1996. Punekars were mostly skeptical of it.. Actually, this was not entirely surprising. In those days, someone travelling to the USA was such a rare occurrence that it made news. However, now things have changed quite dramatically.
When I founded Dilip Oak’s Academy in 1996, only 24 students had enrolled. Eight of them went to the USA eventually. Gradually, the number grew over the years and, in 2016 alone, we sent as many as 1,500 students to a wide variety of the universities in the US. These students were not from Pune alone. Many of them hailed , but even from small cities and towns in the hinterland of Maharashtra, such as Sangli, Vita, Satara, Belgavi, Kolhapur, Amaravati and Aurangabad. Some belonged to and other states like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat as well. Now, in 2017, we expect the number to climb to an unprecedented 1,800 at least. We have come a long way, indeed.
Looking back, clearly, the two Bills, Bill Gates and Bill Clinton, opened the floodgates to American education for Indian students. Bill Gates needed intelligent young computer professionals and Bill Clinton desired stronger ties with India. Since then, the rising number of Indian students travelling to the US has completely shattered the myth that an American education was exclusively either for the most intelligent or the super-rich.
I am often quizzed about the perceived preference for the US when it comes to higher education or employment. In my opinion the chief reason is the immense size of the US economy. While the Indian economy amounts to US$ 2.3 trillion, the size of the US economy, the largest in the world, is a whopping US$18 trillion. As you would see, the US, which accounts for only about 6% of the world’s population but contributes 24% (almost a quarter) of the world’s total GDP, which is mind boggling. This has made the USA a magnet for immigrants from across the globe.
Most Americans cannot afford a university education. One reason for this is that many American parents expect their children to become self-reliant immediately after school. Typically, American parents do not pay for their children’s university education. Young people aspiring for higher education have to raise the money themselves.
Besides, a big chunk of many of the American high school graduates prefer to study psychology, music, languages, etc., over science, technology, engineering and mathematics, which have collectively become known by the acronym STEM. The humanities rank much lower on the demand scale in the job market. American corporations have historically had a short supply of STEM-trained professionals. Therefore, they have had to depend on immigrants particularly from populous countries such as India and China, to meet this ever-growing demand gap. India and China have traditionally accorded top priority to education. Even economically backward communities in India, for instance, somehow find the means to educate their children as best they can.
To meet its insatiable need for technically trained manpower, the US grants about 85,000 H1B visas (work visas) every year. This annual influx of immigrants is quite negligible when compared to the country’s population which is a sizeable 320 million. Having said so, it must be stressed, that without this import of human resource, the American corporations would not have progressed so much.
The US attracts intelligent and creative persons from all over the world because it is a “melting pot” of great diversity. In its constant social churning, race and religion, class and culture, do not matter. Only merit is the overriding consideration for career advancement or upward social mobility. What immigrants have found to their benefit is that merit is duly rewarded without any prejudice whatsoever. The American system catapulted Mr. Sundar Pichai to the helm of affairs at the head of Google in recognition of his contribution to the organisation. Similarly, and Mr. Satya Nadela was picked to head at the helm of Microsoft for his proven merit. A South African, Mr. Elon Musk founded Tesla, the electric car company in the US ; Steve Jobs’ father was a Syrian immigrant. The US offers to anyone who has a dream and potential, the opportunity to live that dream, the Great American Dream.
Americans have a penchant for innovation. Venture capitalists in the USA have historically displayed an enormous ability to take risks when they invest in innovative ideas. Almost 80% of the ideas they invest in turn out to be duds, but the rest of the ideas that work catch on and rapidly evolve into great and innovative corporations like Amazon and Facebook. And these more than makeup for the loss.