Tag Archives: international student

My Experience At The University of Texas

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This post is courtesy of guest blogger Michael Tonhaeuser, a Double Degree student who came to McCombs from WHU Koblenz-Otto Beisheim Graduate School of Management in Germany.

I’m Michael from Bendorf, Germany, and I had the opportunity to join the McCombs MBA program for two semesters. After months of great events and challenging projects, I have found that the program unlocked potential I never thought I had. And it was a lot of fun, too!

The community at McCombs has made a real difference throughout my stay. Along with other international students, I got an idea of that community right in my first “onboarding” week. Chris from the MBA Program Office and Bernice from Career Management gave us a nice welcome and introduced us to all things UT – including a refresher about American Football rules! The early cultural immersion process continued at an international student luncheon, where I met my student mentor Angela. A second-year MBA student herself, she shared her experiences of the first year at McCombs and brought me up to speed on student activities. It was so impressive to hear how much students do besides coursework! Before long, I found myself a member of the local American Marketing Association chapter and a registered participant of rhetorical trainings.

Then the classes began. Back in Germany, I had heard a lot about how much professors at McCombs involve their students. And this turned out to be true across the board! The discussions in class with professors and fellow students with so many different backgrounds were more lively and profound than anything I had seen before. At this point, distinguished McCombs lecturer John Doggett deserves a special mention. His two classes pushed the boundaries of an entrepreneurial class by including case discussions about ethics, law, finance, and even the purpose in life. But other classes were quite unique as well: in team projects, I helped Austin restaurants overhaul their pricing, analyzed the market of telephones for the hard-of-hearing, and found clients for a new Internet startup.

Atop Mount Bonnell

Atop Mount Bonnell

In Austin, the Longhorns experience goes well beyond the classroom. Everywhere you go in the city, you are also reminded of UT’s great accomplishments in sports. I was therefore particularly excited to see the atmosphere of Longhorns football at DKR stadium. I went to see the team during a sweeping home victory, which made the experience even more special. On days like this, Austin’s famed sixth street is definitely at its best!

After these two semesters, I leave for Germany with great memories inside and outside of the classroom. The friendly and laid-back people of Austin, the natural beauty of Mount Bonnell and Zilker Park, and many other impressions leave me convinced that I will be back again soon!

 

Hey you! International Student

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Last month, UT held a university wide event called Explore UT. Thousands of school students accompanied by their parents and teachers toured the campus all day and participated in many fun activities.  One of the events was specifically aimed at promoting cultural diversity on campus. UT International students from countries all over the world were asked to volunteer to write names of school children in their native languages. I volunteered to write in my native language Bengali.

Students line up for a class photo in the shape of Texas

What really surprised me was the huge diversity of cultures and nationalities at UT. I found several volunteers who were native speakers and many American students were learning foreign languages.  It is testimony to the diversity of the student population of UT. Surely, this would not have been possible has UT not been receptive to international students. In fact, the infrastructure at UT and at McCombs for international students is very supportive of the immigration legalities. This is definitely one of the important reasons that attracted me to the McCombs School of Business.

It is that time of the year when first years are wrapping up their internship search and second year MBAs are sitting on full-time job offers. In the past, I have received a lot of e-mails from prospective students about finding jobs, getting visa sponsorship etc, so I want to answer all those questions in this forum. Please note, I am speaking from my experience as a student who went through this process. I am not an immigration expert.

Question: Can I turn to anyone for advice and help with applying for F1 visa?

Yes! UT has a very effective and efficient International Office located in campus that helped me file my F1 visa when I was admitted to McCombs. They even advised me on what documents I needed if I wanted to travel to India during the winter break.  Additionally, the International office continuously sends travel advisory updates,  issues I-20 cards and has advising hours five days a week for any immigration related questions that you may have. McCombs also has an international advisor who helps us with recruitment and discusses any concerns that we may have.

Question: I am an international student. Will I need visa sponsorship to work in USA during summer?

No. USCIS allows all international students to work in summer as long as they have completed the requisite paperwork for a CPT application. Continuous Practical Training is an application to work in a field related to your study (in the form of a summer internship or part time work in the second year of MBA) and does not require any visa. The student advisors at the International Office helped me complete the paperwork required to apply for CPT.

Question: If I want to work for a company that does not sponsor visas, what are my options?

You can work for that company in summer using your CPT. You can even continue working for them part-time in the second year. It has often happened in the past that companies were so impressed by McCombs students that they changed their HR policies and sponsored H1B visas for those students.

Question: Do companies that hire students on campus sponsor H1B visas?

Yes. McCombs Career Services requires us to specify in our resumes that we will need sponsorship to work legally in USA. Country of citizenship is NOT required in our resumes. When companies hire us on campus, they are fully committed to sponsoring H1B visas.

Question: If I do not find a job by graduation, what can I do?

USCIS allows all students 60 days from the day of graduation to apply for an Employment Authorization (EAD) Card via OPT i.e. Optional Practical Training. With an approved EAD, you can stay/work in USA for twelve more months provided you find employment within 90 days of the start date of your OPT. Effectively, you have 5 months from the date of graduation to find a job. You do NOT need H1B visa for the twelve month duration of the OPT. Again, the highly efficient International office at UT requires all international students to take OPT application training in their final semester. They also helped me file my application earlier last month.

And yes! The international office is fun too! Tonight they are playing a French movie and only us international students are invited to watch for free! Every month, the International office organizes trips to places such as the NASA Space Center in Houston or Sea World at San Antonio or Fredericksburg in New Braunfels. Aye Aye UT!

A Day In The Life of the Minowa Family — Part Two

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Taka Minowa, MBA ’12, talks about life in Austin, McCombs, and how his daughter Saori is adapting to a new culture. This is the second and last part of a two-part story. Special thanks to Anwesha Chatterjee for reaching out to the Minowa family.

Pre McCombs career and decision to join McCombs

I worked for Mizuho Financial Group, one of the largest Japanese banking groups, for 13 years. In the last seven years, I was working in an investment banking arm of Mizuho Group as a merger and acquisition advisor. At that time, I had much experience as a project manager but didn’t have management experience. Therefore, I wanted to learn general management to be senior management in Mizuho. In addition, I had been involved mainly in domestic deals and so had little international experience. I also wanted to experience different culture overseas and broaden my horizons for my goal. Luckily, I got opportunity of learning MBA outside Japan with financial support by Mizuho.

Though I applied for several MBA schools in U.S., I finally decided to enroll at UT because (1) the size of McCombs is relatively small, which allows me to build close relationships with classmates and know everyone. Network is one of the most precious assets I can obtain through MBA. (2) McCombs focus more on practical problems rather than theories, and so has a lot of field-study type program, like MBA+ Projects and practicum. I wanted to learn through practice with teammates. (3) Austin is a very safe place and has great nature, which are very fit for my family with two young kids. Austin gives us great experience and opportunity to enjoy nature that has a good impact on their growth and that would be difficult to experience in Japan.

Minowa FamilyCoping with the new life in United States

As we were totally new to living outside Japan, we had to learn almost everything about how to live a daily life because U.S. system is different from Japan in many ways. However, Japanese MBA student network is helpful when we start setting up our life. Especially second year MBA students help us a lot. In addition, as there are nine first year MBA students from Japan that year, we can help each other and share useful information about daily life.

My wife has made friends leveraging several connections. First, as there are many Japanese MBA students that have family. So, she first made friends with other MBA students’ wives, and then her network started expanding through these connections. In addition, we sometimes have home party with Japanese foods and invite many people, including MBA classmates, and so my wife has many opportunities to know MBA students.

She also goes to ESL program provided by Lutheran Church because it provides daycare service for our son during ESL, which is very useful because daycare service is generally pretty expensive. She made a lot of friend from different countries through this program.

On top of that, Austin has several Japanese communities. Through ESL and other friends, she made a lot of friends in other Japanese communities, resulting in her broad range of network mainly due to her personality and good communication skills.

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Sharing Our National Pastime w/ Our Int’l Friends

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When did you go to your first Major League Baseball game?

If you’re anything like me, you’ve seen way too many to count and you were probably too young to remember anyways. Being in the stadium and watching a baseball game is a beautiful thing and we Americans are lucky to have the experience so tightly interwoven into our culture. So when a group of international classmates approached me about seeing their first MLB game, I offered to take them. It was an easy decision. If you have the chance to give someone their first MLB experience, you say YES! And off to Houston we went…

Our journey closely resembled the beginning of a bad off-color joke — “So 2 Japanese guys, a South Korean, a Chinese guy, and an American walk into a baseball stadium…” — but our crew could not have been better. We compared baseball in America to baseball in Asia and I made sure they had a beer and a hot dog. We did the wave and stretched in the 7th inning. We did what people do at baseball games and we had an awesome time doing it. As I get more involved with SEMA (the Sports, Entertainment, and Media Management Association), I hope to help many more of our international classmates experience the world of American sports.

It’s been a great first month at McCombs and getting to know these brave international students while the Astros took on the visiting San Francisco Giants was definitely one of the highlights. When they came to school here, they brought a true global perspective with them and everybody is better off as a result. Next baseball trip: Tokyo?? I’m down.

Hook’em \m/

The Inside Scoop from a First Year MBA

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Solu Nwanze

Solu Nwanze

Solu Nwanze, my classmate, was born and raised in Nigeria. Solu attended college in the United States. She brings with her a unique perspective of an international student who has been exposed to the culture of U.S. universities and workplace. She is also the sole Nigerian student in our batch and so we wanted to give a shout to all our friends in Nigeria and Africa who are reading this, “Join us at McCombs, because what starts here changes the world!”

It is admissions season again and the first application deadline has passed. If you are still reading this post, then you are probably a prospective student and the McCombs School of Business is probably in your radar, but you haven’t had time to research. Or you want an insider’s point of view and haven’t been able to do that so far. So, here is what a first year feels about her application to McCombs and espouses a few of the zillion reasons why we chose to attend this wonderful school.

Tell us a little about your educational and professional background.

I studied Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where I was actively involved in several student organizations. After college, I worked as a Software Engineer for Dialogic, a telecom manufacturing company.

Why have you decided to do an MBA?

I am pursuing an MBA to gain strong business acumen which I will combine with my technical skills in my career going forward.

What made you choose to apply to the McCombs School of Business?

McCombs has a strong reputation in Information Management which is an area of interest. The mini-consulting projects made available through the MBA+ program is a fantastic opportunity especially for career switchers like me. Lastly, my interactions with McCombs staff, faculty and students were well above average.

How would you describe your first three months at McCombs?

I enjoy the collaborative environment at McCombs. If I need help with academics, industry information or job function advice, my classmates are my first source of information. In addition to that, the staff and faculty here are always willing to help out and usually provide solutions in a very short amount of time, unusual in a large university. If there is anything you want to enact, a new student organization or a new policy, McCombs gives students the opportunity to exercise their leadership skills.

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