Working while studying in America is quite well-accepted. You can work on campus for 20 hours per week. Almost all students studying in a university find on campus jobs. The pay varies from 6-9 dollars per hour depending on the area and the type of work you get. Even if you get an average of $7 per hours, you can earn around $500 per month which is more than enough to take care of your costs of living. You may even be able to pay part of your tuition costs out of your savings.
On campus jobs can vary from working in a computer lab, or in a library or cafeteria. In America all work is respected because Americans believe in the dignity of labour and in being able to pay for one’s own education. Indians are widely accepted in computer-related fields. You should try to get a job in this area since the jobs are more comfortable and the pay is better.
The American system is very flexible, so changing your field of study is acceptable even in the middle of a course. So, for example a student doing his or her MS in the engineering department of a particular university might shift to a program in the computer science department of that university.
Though this is acceptable, you must remember that when you transfer to a new department, the department may not accept all your credits. They may treat you as a fresh admission and accept only those credits that are common to both programs. So, before you change your course find out what credits will be accepted, see how many you will have to do all over again and then see whether it is really worth it. Only then is it worth thinking of changing your field.
Changing universities is possible and is allowed in the American system of education. You may want to change your university for a number of reasons:
- You were earlier not given financial assistance in any university, so you took up the best available, but now you have been offered financial assistance by a university that you would like to go to
- After you have joined the university you may find that it is not exactly what you wanted – a faculty member who you thought would be teaching is on an assignment elsewhere or the course that you had wanted to study has been changed for some reason and so on
- You had to take admission to a low-grade university since your GRE/GMAT scores were not good, but now you have done well in the first semester and on the strength of your improved academic performance, you want to transfer credits to another university.
Change universities for any of these reasons is quite acceptable to and you can change universities at any time but, this is normally done after the first or second semester. Also keep in mind that there are some potential problems that you should be aware of: because of the differences between one university and another, your new university may not accept all your credits and may ask you to take some extra credits.
Students planning to take admission in an American university must have their GRE/GMAT/TOEFL scores in hand at least 9 months in advance. This means that:
- if you are applying for the fall semester, which starts in September, your score must be ready in January of that same year at the latest.
- If you are applying for the spring semester, which starts in January, you should have your score in hand by March or April of the previous year.
Ideally, however, you should take your GRE/GMAT tests 1½-2 years before hand. That is,
- engineering, pharmacy and medical students should take the GRE when they are in their third year
- students pursuing an MA or MSc should take the GRE while they are doing Part 1 of their course.
This is possible since GRE scores are valid for 5 years. Keep in mind, however, that the TOEFL score is valid only for 2 years and therefore should be given only 9 months in advance as stated above.
There are three advantages of taking the test this early:
- You are less burdened in the pre-final year than in the final year and so you will be able to focus more on test preparation
- since you will have your score well in advance, you will not miss out on any of the university deadlines and thus be in a very good position to select the universities which offer you the best kind of courses and research based on your interests and score
- If for some reason your score is low in the first attempt, you still have an opportunity to appear again and improve your score (see blogs on the ETS Free Diagnostic Service and ETS Score Select, which allows you to select which scores you send to the universities and What if I Get a Low Score on the TOEFL/IELTS?)
IELTS Test centers will send copies of the Test Report Form, free of charge, to up to five ‘recognizing organisations’ (universities and colleges who accept an IELTS score – click this IELTS Global Recognition System link for a list of institutions that accept the IELTS score). If you want your results to be sent automatically to a university or educational institution, include the correct details in the section on the IELTS Application Form – see page 3. and onward for the relevant place to enter their details.) In other words you have to specify the names of the universities and educational institutions you want your free IELTS scores to be sent to in the form before you submit it.