TakeruK

Talk to your university. They will know what to do.

Hello! I learned English at a fairly young age, but I have been in a similar position as you where I graded work from students with a wide range of language abilities. As fuzzy said, if this is not a science writing class, I would not put writing ability as a major grading criteria (personally I don't use that as a criteria at all). I also agree that you should grade everyone to the same standard. However, I want to clarify that you can/should set the standard to be what you feel is right and what your professor says. In this case, since your professor says to use your best judgement, you are given leeway to decide how you want to set the standard. For instance, if you do not want to punish anyone for misspellings, odd turns of phrase or grammatical errors, then you could decide that these things carry zero weight in your grading. This way, no one's grades will be impacted due to their writing. It is fair and equal if you do this for all students, instead of allowing these to slip by for non-native speakers yet punish native speakers. (Note: how do you even decide who is a native speaker and who isn't, anyways?). When I grade science homework assignments, I never deduct points for the types of mistakes you list here. My evaluation criteria is to determine whether or not the student understands whatever concept the question was asking. So, I don't really care if they misspell words (unless their misspelling changes the meaning of the sentence to an incorrect answer). I do grade for how well the student explains their work though, so I have actually given higher grades in the "clarity" part of my rubric to students who write out what they did (even with tons of spelling errors) than for students who don't explain anything at all. As long as I can still understand their work with a reasonable amount of effort, it is treated the same to me. I'd also second fuzzy's suggestion to direct students to the writing center if you think they can benefit from that resource. I really like the suggestion to regrade the writing only (if you were grading on writing) as an incentive for students to resubmit previous work.

It really depends on your own personal preferences/priorities. I know many grad students that arrive just 1 week or even a few days prior to the start date and stay in a motel or AirBnB until they sign a lease. For me, this is cutting it way too close and I would not have the peace of mind I need to start a new program if I didn't know where I would live! In addition, I know some students who do this but then end up paying way more for rent and/or live in a really bad place because of limited availability and they get stuck with either affordable but really crappy places or decent but very expensive places. But it also depends a lot on the housing market so I'd talk to some current grad students and find out. Note that in one place I lived, it was a major college town and all of the hotels/motels are 100% booked the week before term starts because everyone is there to help move their kid into college. So be aware of those things too (i.e. you might want to at least go out 1-2 weeks in advance). I might have said this above or elsewhere, but these apartment-hunting trips can be done over a few days and cost about 1 months rent. I worked during undergrad (and my Masters program was well funded) so I had the savings to sacrifice one month's rent to ensure peace of mind and I felt it was a good investment before signing a 12 month lease (it could potentially cost a lot more in time and/or money to be stuck in an unhappy place for a year or to break the lease). However, if you don't have savings, then this might not be a viable option.

I think the best choices are the people who can speak to your research work and scholarly potential the best. So, if you are limited to three, the top three from your list would be: - thesis advisor - other thesis advisor who has known you since freshman year - internship supervisor who oversees your work (assuming they are a faculty member too...but if not, then perhaps more details is needed for all of these people). The other two choices are less desirable because the "prof from last year" sounds like someone who taught you a class but did not supervise any work and the third prof on the advising team may not know you as long as the other three. If the internship supervisor is not a faculty member, then you might want to consider adding a 4th letter if the schools allows it and if you think all 4 letters are going to be strong. Finally, keep in mind that you can ask more than 3 people for letters in general because you might not use the same 3 for every application. You would figure out which letters you want to send to which schools before making the request. It's also okay to chat with these people and see whether they think a letter from them can be especially helpful for certain schools. e.g. maybe you do want to include that 3rd thesis advisor as a 4th letter if you are applying to a school where this prof has a great relationship with.

No. The primary challenge for international students is the much higher rate of international tuition. This won't apply to you, unless your future school's state has some special rule that you need to be in the state for a really long time prior to starting school to qualify for domestic tuition (I don't know of any states that do this though). The secondary challenge is that sometimes international students come from schools less known to the grad program the student is applying to. So, depending on the international reputation of your undergrad school, this may or may not apply to you. However, I'd note that this is a challenge for domestic students too (e.g. if you're from a small state school in the US, your school might not be well known to the grad program either). And, certainly this will not be a problem if you're from a well known international school (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge, etc.). This factor is often cited as an international student challenge since it affects international students more, but it does not affect everyone nor is it unique to international students. In any case, I think the primary challenge is the main source of issues an international student may face in terms of admission. The secondary thing is likely much more minor. Also, the other non-admissions related challenges (getting visas, etc.) won't apply to you!

Your employer (i.e. the school/department) should provide you with all necessary supplies (e.g. textbooks for the course, etc.). But I find it's fun (for me, as a TA) to have some non-necessary things to make the job easier. For example, I get a nice pen that I like using so grading feels less tedious. I also get stickers for my students' homework.

Our advisors were trained in the same way. Honestly, one major challenge with academia, in my opinion, is that while most/many faculty members do end up in some sort of leadership and/or managerial role, academics are rarely trained to be managers. We generally only get formal training in research skills. We're expected to pick up teaching, mentoring, leadership, management, etc. skills on the fly. And the whole academic model of learning from your advisor/mentor means that you're learning these skills from someone who also doesn't have this training. Of course, the situation is more complex than that, and sure there are many advantages of having the "management" be people who primarily want to do research. It might be a disaster if academic departments are led by people with management training and no concept of what it's like to be a scientist. But there has to be some middle ground where universities provide more (mandatory and effective) training for faculty members as they take on more roles. Unfortunately, I often get the sense that (some) faculty do not want to be forced to learn these skills, that it will make things "too corporate" for the academic world. I do love many of the quirks of academia, but I think this is one value that some people hold onto too tightly and at the expense of everyone else.

This is a very common issue/concern I've heard from grad students all over my campus during my PhD and from students at other places. Or, more generally, the lack of feedback and clear guidelines. It happens at all levels: we don't know exactly what the evaluation criteria for quals are, what is "good enough" for publication, what grant applications look like, what is "enough" teaching experience, what would win fellowships, how do you get a talk at a conference, what is expected at a thesis advisory committee meeting, what do they want from you during your defense etc. Some of these things you get a feel for once you get some experience but no one can ever tell you what the rubric or criteria are. And mostly because there isn't one! This isn't super helpful directly but maybe it helps to know that other students do feel similarly across many fields and many programs? For your specific situation, I'm not sure there is much you can do that will work for sure. In your shoes, I would certainly rally the other students to push back against the department. Do the students in your department get together on a semi-regular basis to discuss what's working and what isn't? I started doing this with my department partway through my PhD and it was helpful. We would get funding from the University student government to buy pizza for any students who wanted to show up and discuss issues within our program. We also collected feedback anonymously through an online form. Then, a core group of volunteers condensed this down, checked in with the student body and presented it to the department academic leadership as representatives of all students in the department. It's helpful to have a ranked list and to also identify the problem, exactly what is causing it, and make a request to address it. I and the other student volunteers already had a good working relationship with the department faculty and leadership so it was easy for us to bring this up as respectful but important criticism and we were able to have a dialogue about the issues, instead of being dismissed as just whining. If this rapport doesn't exist in the department, you may have to adjust your approach accordingly. Unless you know for certain otherwise, I would advise you or other students that might want to bring this up to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume they are all acting in good faith. You can get much further, at least initially, with this perspective. For example, in your specific situation, instead of starting off by complaining that the department is asking too much of you, frame it slightly differently. Bring up the concern as an issue similar to how you wrote it here. Maybe frame it as the students requesting more clear communication and feedback about program expectations. You could present the students' perspective of how there were not guidelines before, so everyone just did what the older students did, but it seems like there is a shift now and you are hoping to get more communication on the expectations. I find that often times the faculty have no idea what the students are thinking and they assume the students know exactly what they are thinking. It could be that the faculty have different ideas on what they mean by a project even. While I was a student, my load was about what you said here. The main priority while being a student is graduating, so you want to be focussing on things that will be finished in your timescale as a student. The second priority is doing whatever work is paying your stipend! Many of my projects now were kernels of ideas while a student, putting them off until I became a postdoc (i.e. paid to do whatever I want instead of being paid to work on specific projects). I am not sure how your field works, but in mine, there are two main categories of postdoc positions: independent ones where you are paid to do your own research program and others where your postdoc position is paid out of a grant for a specific position. I am lucky to have the former, which allows me to spread my time across anything I am interested in. So my list grew a ton in the first few months of my postdoc. There were many ideas that I also pursued for 3-5 days before deciding to abandon it or shelve it for way later.

I just want to say that I'm still trying to find that sweet spot that fuzzy mentioned. I've learned a lot during my first year as a postdoc and I'm getting closer but still trying to get the right balance. I work in a similar way to fuzzy. Looking at my whiteboard right now, I have 15 projects listed. Of these, there are: - 3 projects that I am primarily responsible for and am taking the lead role - 2 projects where I have a major role, including one that is led by a student - 4 projects where I have some collaborative role (i.e. I'll supply some data and/or analysis for a paper led by someone else) - 2 projects that are ideas without any data yet and proposals for funding/obtaining the data have been submitted - 3 projects that is just kernels of an idea that, like fuzzy, I will occasionally add to and refine over time. One of these is close to getting to the next stage (applying for data/funds), though! Some of my main obstacles to finding a sweet spot is that I spend a lot of my time just managing other people's work (e.g. students). I learned that in my last year of my PhD when I really needed to get one paper out before graduation, I worked really well when I paused all other projects to only focus on one. I can't really do that right now though but I maybe need to dedicate 3 or 4 days per week to one of the three projects on my first category in order to reach my paper goal for this year. But I'm concerned that neglecting my collaborations will mean that I will be out of work in the future. Getting the right balance is really tough.

Definitely. I have heard the same about those offices. I was very fortunate to have a very good international office experience but even so, a few others with unique situations were not able to get help from the office due to their lack of experience in those specific cases (they were referred to lawyers instead, which is better than giving false info, though!)

I do remember some US schools asking this. But they don't usually ask it so vaguely/generally as you stated. Usually, the question is more like, "Do you have any academic offenses on your record?" etc. Or they might specify that they are asking about offenses where you didn't get pardoned/excused. So if your record is now clean, you probably do not have to worry (of course, consult each case specifically if it comes up, since you have to ensure you comply with whatever agreements they ask you to sign when you submit your application). That said, even if you had to disclose this, I would hardly consider this a problem. Explaining it the way you did here would be fine and I can't see how anyone would care. Honestly, I am surprised that your school even wrote you up for something as minor as that.

Just want to say that you should definitely get expert advice from your school's international office before trying anything. We're not experts here, just people with similar experiences. 1. Yes, using pre-graduation OPT takes away from your post-grad OPT eligibility. You get a set amount (12 months, plus some extra time if you are a STEM major) for all OPT, whether it's pre- or post-. It's generally much better to have post-grad OPT so that you can use that time to find more permanent employment and you are able to work many more hours, but like I said above, if you aren't going to be using the post-grad OPT, then you might as well do pre-grad OPT. 2. If you leave the US, then you are no longer on F-1 status. So yes, if you go back home during the breaks, then you can work. However, if you are going back and forth often, you may run into issues if you cannot prove that you only worked while not on F-1 status. Keep very detailed and clear paper trails. Also, I am assuming you are from a country that will allow you to get a multiple entry visa into the USA. For some foreign nationals, you need to apply for a visa for every single entry, so this may not be tenable. 3. You need your employer to sponsor your application for H1-B. So, the first step is to find an employer that is both willing to hire you and sponsor you for H1-B. If you are lucky and/or find a good enough job, your employer may even pay some or all of the fees to get you this visa, otherwise you should be prepared to pay for it. Note that most academic employers, at least in my field, will not sponsor you for H1-B unless you have a permanent position. But it does sound like you are seeking non-academic positions. Getting a job with H1-B is no easy feat. The Trump administration have made some changes and proposed others that makes everything more uncertain. But notwithstanding that, even if you do find an eligible employer willing to sponsor you, the existing challenges were i) there is a limit on the number of H1-B petitions (65,000 plus 20,000 extra for those with advanced degrees) and ii) this limit is usually filled within a few days (this year, the window opened on April 2 and the limit was reached on April 6). See: https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-workers/h-1b-specialty-occupations-and-fashion-models/h-1b-fiscal-year-fy-2019-cap-season ; this year 94,000 applicants applied for 65,000 spots, which means that if you applied after April 6, you will be rejected and if you applied within the open window, you approximately have a 65% chance of getting considered [when there are more applications accepted than the limit, the applications are chosen by lottery to proceed]). So, it is very unlikely that you would be applying for H1-B status while still in your Masters program. Instead, most foreign students will use their post-grad OPT to find work after graduation. If they graduate in June (for example) and start a job immediately afterwards, then that gives them some time to pass through any probationary period before the company is willing to spend the time and money to sponsor you to apply for a H1-B. However, I'm not quite sure how the timelines work, since the H1-B process takes awhile and your 12 month OPT will run out before then. Maybe there's some parole status or something that allows H1-B applicants to remain working while their applications are being processed. I'm not experienced here, so maybe someone else can speak to this. If you are somehow eligible for longer OPT (e.g. STEM field) or other visa statuses (e.g. if you are Canadian or Mexican, through NAFTA, you can get TN status) then this is much more likely. If you have some sort of academic position that can count as a research scholar, then you might be able to have J-1 status for your first USA job. All of these things can help you get the time necessary to qualify for and get H1-B, if that's your goal.

Post-completion OPT is certainly better but pre-completion OPT is worth considering too. I had thought that CPT must be for a required part of the program, but I was on J-1 status so I'm not super familiar with F-1 options. One of the reasons I brought up pre-completion OPT is that for me, I had thought about doing a little bit of pre-completion AT (J-1's version of OPT) for a side teaching job that was only 6 hours per week for a few months. But I didn't know at the time what I would do after graduation so I wanted to save the 3 years of AT for post-completion in case I needed to use it for a postdoc. In the end, I didn't stay in the USA for postdoc, and I could have used a different status anyways. I still think I made the right choice because I was still a few years from graduation and didn't really know what the future held. But someone who is 1 year into a 2 year Masters might already know whether or not they need to keep their OPT for post-completion.

This seems problematic. Definitely talk to your advisor. The work you do in classes is your intellectual property, usually, or the terms of your funding might make it the school's intellectual property. But either way, this prof should not be personally profiting from IP that belongs to you or the school.

I'll second what fuzzy said. Going to a graduate program in a foreign country is a significant investment and only you will be able to determine whether the costs of doing so is actually worth the benefits you are seeking. Can you find another way to get the same credentials in your own country, perhaps meaning that you won't have to pay so much of the costs (both financial and opportunity due to your inability to work on a F-1 visa). I will point out one thing that may be useful though. You can apply for and get approval to have OPT (Optional Practical Training) status. There are two types of OPT: "pre-completion" and "post-completion". As their names imply, the former is status you can have while you are still in your degree program and the latter allows you to remain in the USA after your degree program ends to work in the field of your training. Here is more information about OPT: https://www.uscis.gov/opt There are a lot of considerations, such as your field of study (STEM fields have longer OPT timelines). However, in terms of continuity of your work, the most interesting part to you may be that after one full academic year, you may apply for pre-completion OPT, which allows you to work up to 20 hours per week when school is in session (no limit when school is on break) in the field of your study. I am not sure if your planned Masters program is in the same field as your small projects etc. but OPT does cover self-employment but it also means a lot more paperwork to register yourself as a business owner etc. If you are interested in this route, definitely talk to your grad school's international office about what you may have to do. But if this works out, it means you can reduce the amount of time you are not in contact with your business world to only 1 year instead of two.

This is a really good idea. You don't even have to link it with the letter because this is a good question to ask no matter what. It might even be a good idea to separate this request from the letter so that it doesn't seem like you are trying to get at the letter's contents (e.g. two separate conversations to thank them for the letter and to ask for advice before embarking on grad school, or thank them for the letter at the beginning, talk about your grad school plans / how excited you are, then ask them for advice). I got lots of good advice from asking these things to my undergrad mentor!

Well, renting a house is probably still more expensive than renting an apartment, but if you consider $$ of rent per square feet, renting a house could be cheaper (see @rising_star's post). What I meant though, was that the prices of SoCal is not reflective of the rest of the country. Where I lived for grad school, 1bd apartments can go for 1400+ and 2bd are 1600+. But in other places, 1bd can be as low as 600 so it wouldn't be surprising at all to see a house for 1200. I find bad reviews unreliable too. I've read reviews for places I've lived in and some of the reviewers either had a very different experience than me or have very different standards than me. Although I guess in your case, if you are at the extreme end of noise sensitivity then it makes sense that even any mention of it would be a good reason for you to go elsewhere! Weird. We looked at 20+ places in total during our 5 years in LA County and every single time, we were able to see the actual unit for rent. Sometimes we had to insist, they might make some excuse about why they want to just show us the show/demo/example suite, but they always relented and showed us the actual unit after we press on the matter. This was also true for the many other places we rented elsewhere in North America. Sometimes it's an unfurnished, uninhabited unit. But most of the time, someone was still living there because there is a 30 day notice to vacate in California and we often responded to ads as soon as they are posted so the tenant was still living there for another month. The landlord has the right to request access to the tenant's unit (with 24 hours advance notice) for the purpose to showing the unit to potential renters and it's part of all of our lease agreements. We had several couples look at our place when we were moving out too. So, it's all part of the standard rental practice. Most good landlords set up appointments with us to view the unit days in advance and therefore notified their tenants accordingly. However, we did encounter some situations where the landlord failed to notify the tenant. For example, there was one place where the landlord let us in and we surprised someone who was still asleep (they were working night shifts). We felt very bad that we woke them up but ultimately, it was a red flag against the building manager for not complying with proper rules (and a hint of what may happen to us if we rented from them). Similarly there was some places that refused to show us the unit at first because they probably didn't notify the tenant. In the end, they had to knock on the tenant's door and request entry at the last minute. Theoretically, without 24 hours notice, the tenant could refuse entry but no tenant wants to do that when their security deposit hangs in the balance. So the tenants all say yes. We also considered this as a mark against renting that particular place. In the end, we feel bad about inconveniencing people when we see their unit, but that was the landlord's responsibility to minimize their troubles. In addition, I would never sign a lease and pay a deposit for a unit I have not seen with my own eyes, personally (unless it was a month-to-month thing, but almost all leases are at least 1 year initially and 1 year of rent is a ton of money to promise without seeing the unit itself).

The rest of the country is very different! I lived in SoCal too, that housing market is ridiculous (not the worst in the country but it's up there). Most of the USA is not like this. Like you said, reviews are not reliable I also had to visit apartments within a few days. My strategy was to see as many places as I can, so there were a few things that were absolute red flags but as long as it didn't have those and met my other conditions, I would schedule a visit. Online reviews are sometimes paid (e.g. landlord saying, "write a good review and we'll take $50 off your rent this month") and well, some people just have very different perspectives/standards. I find that reviews are only useful when I know the reviewer personally so I can calibrate what they say with what I know about them. I've visited tons of friends who rave about their apartments and while I'm sure they do really love their apartments, it would be something I'd never rent myself! Be sure to insist on seeing the actual unit you are renting though, not an "example" unit or a "show" unit. If the rest of the place looks okay, I might be happy with seeing the "show" unit in detail but at least quickly walking through the actual unit to be rented.

It depends. Some places have more formal funding agreements than others. At my PhD program, the first year you are expected to have two supervisors to work on two separate topics. The department funds the first year though, so the money comes from the general pool, not any particular supervisor's grant. After that, you can work out how you would be funded. Often, if you are working for two profs, you are funded by both, usually 50/50, but sometimes it might be 80% from one and 20% from another. But sometimes, you're 100% funded by one person and they don't mind you also working on another project. You said "double funding" in the title and I'm not sure what you meant. If you meant funds from two sources, then like I said above, probably yes. If you meant getting twice as much funding, then almost certainly no. You'll still get the same amount of funding, but the costs may be shared between the two advisors. If you have two supervisors for one research project, then it is not too complicated as long as the two profs work well together and it's clear what to do in case of a conflict. Often, there's one primary supervisor and one co/supplementary supervisor brought on for their expertise in one area, but the project "belongs" to the primary (and you). If you have two separate projects each with their own supervisor (i.e. your thesis will be the combination of these two related projects), then it's really important to have a talk early on to discuss expectations from each project/professor and how you will spend your time. Different profs might have different expectations of what "50% of your time" means. And, it might not make sense to work on both projects exactly in parallel: you might want to spend 6 months with 90% effort on one and 10% on the other and then switch 6 months later. Often, because it's easier to keep the funding source constant while your effort/time changes, you may still get money with a 50/50 split even though you aren't working on projects 50/50 at any given time, and without a clear plan ahead of time on how you would spend your efforts, one or more profs might feel they aren't getting enough of your time. This can cause tons more stress and damage relationships, so be sure to talk about these things at the start of your program/project.

I agree with @Psygeek. I try to take the same approach and I feel that my science does improve when it's legitimate criticism (i.e. not #5) and I take action to improve it. At the very least, even if there is no net gain, or the time invested to address the criticism is not worth the improvement, you usually get something else out of it that makes it worth it, e.g. appease a coauthor/colleague/referee. But I think Psygeek's point #1 is important: something that is not personal, i.e. relevant to my work, not my self. I work in a field where it is much easier to separate the identity of the researcher with the work they are doing. So, I actually just ignore all criticism that isn't only relevant to my work, unless I know for a fact that the person offering feedback is acting with good faith. For example, if scholars criticize my non-research-related* community involvement, I just ignore them. When an instructor criticized my accent during a presentation of my research, I also ignored them (I did my best to push back to let them know that this is not an okay thing to say to me but I didn't change it for them). (*Again, for me, all of my community involvement is unrelated to my work). Just want to clarify two things: 1) I'm definitely not advocating for an actual separation of self and work. That is, we should not regard each other as scholars only, but our human sides are also important. We should be aware of the impact of our research on other people (in my field, one major impact that few astronomers seem to care about is that we have built some of our telescopes on the sacred territory of other peoples). And, we should not ignore/excuse a scholar's bad behaviour (harassment, etc.) because they are brilliant/produce great research. I'm just saying that some people have no right to criticize aspects of my life unrelated to work (e.g. whether I have a family, my accent, etc.) 2) From your other posts, it sounds like your field and your work is much more related to your community involvement/activities than mine, so separating criticism like I have may not be possible. Hope this idea is still useful though---I have no idea if your situation would count as valid/legitimate criticism or not. But I guess that's up to you anyways. So my point is similar to Psygeek's #5: you have to decide whether you care about this particular feedback or not. As students, it's easy to feel like you're expected to absorb every piece of advice and feedback, but the reality is that people aren't all well-meaning (and sometimes well-meaning people make mistakes). So an important thing to learn is to filter out the useful/good criticism vs. the bad.

As others said, you may want to talk with your advisors about this. Maybe you can still do the work you want from your current department. In some fields, a scholar trained in a related discipline can actually be quite valued because they bring a different perspective and/or expertise! But in others, if you are serious about a career in one field, having a degree from another might make it hard for you to "break into" the network. But first, find out if it is possible and if it's a good idea to try this. If you do want to officially switch, in most cases, this means applying to the History program. You'll be evaluated against all the new applicants. There is a few advantages if you are already at the same school and already working in the area and may already know some profs. You won't be as much of an unknown and while you will probably have to start your graduate program all over again in History, the courses you took already may count towards some requirements.

The only "official" info I have is that some schools require all students to apply for these awards in order to be eligible for internal awards. However, if your undergrad GPA was less than 80%/A-/3.5 then you don't have to apply. So you might want to interpret this as being the minimum. I know that some graduate schools in my field make this the minimum for acceptance into any grad program. But these awards don't really have minimums---someone with a lower GPA but excellent research can still win. Also, grades are usually higher in graduate school than undergrad. Grades have a totally different meaning in grad school!

I understand your discomfort and many English speakers do not choose to attend schools in Quebec because they prefer to speak in their native language. But as fuzzy said, there are tons of students who do choose to be evaluated academically in their non-native language. I would say about 25% of grad students at my US PhD program were not native English speakers. I also agree with fuzzy that in graduate school, classes/grades don't matter very much and it's such a small part of your graduate school experience! In the end, there must be a reason why you are considering schools outside of Quebec right? Do these reasons outweigh how you feel about evaluations in English? No one will "make" you go to any particular school, so you should choose the schools that best fit your own goals and needs!

Sure! Ultimately, as you said, one does eventually need a real paid job in order to qualify for some sort of immigration-intent visa such as H1-B etc. So this is more along the lines of how does an international student maintain legal status in a crappy job market where they might not have a job lined up right after graduation. The goal of staying in the US is to help them find a job and move towards a work visa with or without immigration intent. The easiest and most common thing to do is do OPT (if you are on F-1) as AP said. One common misconception is that you need to have a paying job in order to stay on OPT. There is some limited time you can be unemployed so you can actually apply for OPT without a job in hand. In addition, your job can be volunteer work (e.g. in the lab/group you just graduated from). The main requirements are that you work in the field that you studied in and the work is for more than 20 hours per week, on average. In addition, self-employment is also allowed, so some students open their own consulting firm (or join one created by another student). It doesn't have to be a successful firm. So, this means that for F-1 students, you can almost certainly stay in the USA beyond graduation on OPT for 12 months (or almost 3 years in a STEM field). Of course, I should mention that doing things solely to extend your stay in the USA is against the law. But volunteering in the lab/group that you were a part of and/or starting your own consulting firm can certainly fit within the spirit and the rules of the OPT program. I personally would think the volunteering route is only really worth it if you are doing work that actually benefits you, not the lab you are volunteering for. Otherwise, it's the same as this exploitative free labour.

Taking a generous interpretation, I can see how this all could be a big misunderstanding. For instance, this: could be fine as volunteer/service work in some cases. It doesn't really say how much of a commitment they are expecting for these things. But thesis committees do often get people outside of the university to serve and they don't usually pay them (maybe for travel reimbursement but not much else). Similarly, academics and researchers do often guest lecture in graduate and undergrad classes (I just did this for my friend's class last semester when my friend was away at a conference). And having an alumni who is also an expert consult on key committees is also reasonable (e.g. dept head search committee, student activities committee etc.). Finally, of course researchers of all types will collaborate with each other without charging fees and so on. So, if this program really is just meant to formalize a network of alumni who could be called on to do some of these tasks on their own time, then I don't think it's a problem. Academics do this type of service work all the time without charging anyways (at least in my field). I actually just did some of these and while the group that asked for my services offered an honorarium, I am not allowed to accept it as I am already paid salary from my own employer for my work on it. So, if this really was a misunderstanding and the only difference between what SIU is doing vs. what commonly happens is that they are creating a network specifically for their alums rather than just researchers in the field (i.e. usually profs and depts cultivate their own networks for this, not at the university level), then this is fine. Note that this is only really okay if things like lectures are guest lectures, not full classes. However, the reason why I feel like there may be more to this than a misunderstanding was the other links originally posted (description of a phone call) plus this: Since they are looking to officially call this an adjunct faculty position, combined with the list of duties, it seems more like they are trying to get people to do regular faculty work for free. I think one easy test would be to consider whether or not the work they want this adjunct to do would normally be done by an actual paid faculty member. If yes, then this is unacceptable predatory behaviour. If no, then I think it's a huge miscommunication!