Welcome to the May 2013 Newsletter!

This month six of us will be at the NAFSA Annual Conference in St. Louis, MO. We would love to meet with you if you are attending, so let us know. We will also be tweeting during the event on our Twitter profile @intstudent.

We also see this month, the roll out of the new I-94 entry procedures for those students coming into the USA. A welcomed change with the reduction in paperwork, but something all students should be aware of.

Ross Mason
Editor, InternationalStudent.com

We will have two exhibit booths this year, one for our parent company Envisage International (booth #1612) and one for our sister site International Student Insurance (booth #1610). If you are an international educator and plan to attend please stop by and visit us or contact us for an appointment to learn more about what we do.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

As many international students know, the I-94 document needs to be completed on the plane, prior to arrival in the US, and is the document that is stamped and attached to your passport to show that you have entered the USA. As of April 30th 2013, the Department of Homeland Security has begun rolling out their new electronic process, so the paper form will no longer be needed at entry and instead all the information will be attached to a record online that the immigration officer will pull up when a student enters.

The new method should streamline the process immensely for both the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) but also for many international students as burdensome paperwork is reduced. Students can now simply log online once in the USA and access the CBP's website to obtain an electronic copy of the I-94. The phased roll out should be completed by the end of May, however students should be aware that some airports may still need the paper document during the phase-in period.

Find out all the information, and which airports will be affected over the month of May. And stay tuned for more potential changes as legislators deal with the fallout from the Boston Marathon bombing. Although neither of the accused bombers were F1 students, two of their friends that at a minimum appeared to have obstructed investigators entered the country on terminated F1 visas, prompting calls for further student immigration reform.

Southern West Virginia is known for the outdoors. Activities in Athens and the surrounding areas include white water rafting, canoeing, skiing, snowboarding, hiking and mountain biking to name a few.

Concord University offers a wide variety of undergraduate programs. They also offer Intensive English as a Second Language programs and have a variety of scholarships for qualified international students.

To learn more, you can visit their profile on InternationalStudent.com or download their new ebrochure for international students.

One of the time-honored rites of passage associated with going to college is getting a roommate, with all of the nervous excitement that involves. For many people, this is their first experience of ever sharing a room, at least with someone other than a sibling, and it will be memorable. Try it - ask anyone (no matter how old!) if they remember their freshman year roommate - and you will find that, for good or for bad, everyone remembers their first roommate.

For international students, differences between roommates can be exacerbated even further by deep cultural or religious traditions, or just differences in daily routine. For some tips on adjusting to roommate life smoothly, particularly when your roommate is from a different country, visit the US News education blog post on preparing for a college roommate.

This month we feature a post in the International Student Forum from an international student who is looking for advice on their visa:

My OPT expires in Jan '14 - what can I do until I get H1B? I understand I can only apply for H1B around April. Is there anything I can do to keep working during this time period from Jan to the time I get my H1B? I'm a STEM major and I can get the extension of another 17 months (which could solve all of my problems), but the employer is not part of E-Verify.

If you are a current international student, or have some advice - please swing by our student forum and share your knowledge.

We all love to travel, and finding the best (and cheapest) airfare is normally the leading factor in choosing one flight over another. But as we highlighted in our fun site of the week a few months ago, search sites like Hipmunk are changing the way we are looking at flights by sorting them by their "agony" factor. Similarly, Route Happy's goal is to find you the "happiest" flight available with their happiness factor. This factor takes into consideration flight times, transfer times but also age of the aircraft, amenities available on board the plane, and customer reviews. A new way to search for flights.

In good economies or bad, there is always a strong demand for nurses. To jump start a nursing career, students from around the world choose to study nursing in the USA. With the many types of fields and specialties, there is a wide range of opportunity for any international student. If you are looking for a career that gives you the ability to work with people on a regular basis, be employable around the world and make a direct impact on people's lives on a daily basis, studying nursing may just be the field for you!

Nursing is a great career for international students because it allows for growth and specialization in many areas. Most people associate nurses with a hospital, which is true - more than half of all employed nurses are hospital based employees. Nevertheless, the hospital environment allows for variety. These nurses can be found in the Medical-Surgery, ED/ER-Emergency, B-Obstetrics, S-Pediatrics, ICU/NICU-Intensive Care and Oncology, just to name a few. Some nurses are considered "floaters" and may rotate among departments and floors.

For more information, please visit our study nursing section.