Is getting a work visa in the US more difficult for some degrees?

[andreavargas]

I recently watched a video featuring a University of Washington PhD international student who said there are some fields that are harder to work under in the US since the companies under them require a green card. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX3XJiY-QZE

Is it true? Do you guys agree? Are there other fields that are similar to this where you can face difficulty working in the US after studying there due to the limitations in your field? I'm quite interested in working in the US someday after I hopefully do my postgrad there, so I'm also interested to know what other fields have this kind of limitation. Thanks!

[_kita]

Not international. I had a lot of international cohort members, so we ended up hearing a lot of career advice directed to them. They were warned about going into consulting/contracting work. My assumption that anything freelancing would cause a lot of problems. However, the advice given to them was less 'degree specific' and more 'job type' specific.'

[fuzzylogician]

42 minutes ago, andreavargas said:

I'm quite interested in working in the US someday after I hopefully do my postgrad there, so I'm also interested to know what other fields have this kind of limitation. Thanks!

Why don't you more explicitly ask about the fields and potential jobs you're interested in, instead of asking this broad and vague question? That way you're much likelier to get responses and we're less likely to waste our time telling you information that's irrelevant to you. 

[andreavargas]

2 minutes ago, fuzzylogician said:

Why don't you more explicitly ask about the fields and potential jobs you're interested in, instead of asking this broad and vague question? That way you're much likelier to get responses and we're less likely to waste our time telling you information that's irrelevant to you. 

It could be relevant to other people as well, which was why I was asking. Personally I'm more interested in the social sciences. 

[fuzzylogician]

1 hour ago, andreavargas said:

It could be relevant to other people as well, which was why I was asking. Personally I'm more interested in the social sciences. 

As someone who's been on this site for close to a decade, it's been my experience that vague questions don't get answers. It's also been my experience as someone who answers *many* of these questions that I'm a lot less motivated to spend my time replying myself when it seems like the question asker has done so little work of their own to research their question that they can't even formulate a proper question. While people do read old posts, you'd be shocked how often we answer the same questions over and over in new threads. I try to only spend my time helping people when I think that investment will actually lead to some discernible positive outcome. 

In your particular case, I think you need to tell us a bit more about what precisely you are interested in doing in the social sciences. I assume you don't mean academic jobs. You should know that getting other jobs in industry as a foreign national can be very difficult, as a general rule. But help us help you: what specifically are you asking about? 

[lemma]

Things have changed dramatically in recent years regarding employer sponsorship. 

A few years ago, investment banks and management consulting firms had no issues hiring international students - along with tech, these were the main employers that international students could access. The expectation was that you would use your year of OPT, and then enter the lottery for H1B. If you missed out - no big deal. The firms would transfer you to another office abroad. 

Things have changed dramatically since then. Most of these firms no longer hire international students because of immigration woes, even though they can in theory. This means the competition for the remaining couple of firms in these areas among internationals is crazy, because few options remain. 

[Lena_Regina]

Short answer: yes

Long answer: My day job is hiring people so I'm pretty familiar with current practices when it comes to US work authorization. It definitely would be helpful to know which field you're going into but here's the basics of how things work for now (who knows where we're headed with the current administration ) 

Like Lemma said most students use their year of OPT to establish themselves in the job market, with a STEM degree you can extend to get a second year of OPT.

After that you need a company to sponsor you for an H1B visa. This can be tricky depending on your field since sponsorship is expensive and part of the requirement for an H1B visa is that it would be difficult to find a US citizen or permanent resident who's qualified for the job. Essentially what this means is the more in demand your skill set is and the higher your degree level is higher the likelihood of getting an H1B. If you hold a Master's or PhD it might be easier to get sponsorship, but gain it would depend on your field. 

Any more specifics would probably help give me a better idea of what info is useful to you.

[TakeruK]

19 minutes ago, Lena_Regina said:

Like Lemma said most students use their year of OPT to establish themselves in the job market, with a STEM degree you can extend to get a second year of OPT.

Although this is an older thread, just wanted to point out that F-1 OPT for STEM students is now 36 months (i.e. three years in total) instead of 27 months as before. (See: https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/students-and-exchange-visitors/students-and-employment/stem-opt)

Also for foreign students on J-1 status, AT (Academic Training) for STEM students has been and is still 36 months. But this status comes with other restrictions for future visa applications.

21 minutes ago, Lena_Regina said:

(who knows where we're headed with the current administration ) 

And of course, all of this is just current for now, anything can happen in the future (although some types of changes do take longer than others, e.g. the increase in F-1 OPT for STEM took many many years to put into place even though it was a popular and supported idea; the process is just slow).