
By Xiao Lu
What you decide to major in university can help define your future life and career. It may also correlate with what kind of career experience and salary you can expect after graduation. So, when deciding your major, think about your passions, interests, values, and career options. If you plan to pursue a career in the U.S. after graduation, you will need to understand the type of work eligibility you will need.
In our previous blog on Understanding Visas to Study and Work in the U.S., we talked about various work opportunities international students have while enrolled in universities. In this blog post, we share some data on what kind of jobs are more likely to be sponsored and offer higher salary.
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What jobs get the most H-1B visas?
The infographic below shows data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on the Characteristics of H1-B Specialty Occupation Workers in 2012. H-1B is the visa category that allows non-immigrants to temporarily work in the U.S. We can see that three out of the five occupations that get the most sponsorship are STEM-related (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).
So why are graduates with STEM degrees more popular among U.S. employers than those who majored in other fields? This might be due to the “STEM crisis” in the U.S. domestic labor market as American students are becoming less competitive in science and math. To fill the gap of qualified STEM workers, U.S. companies have begun hiring foreign talent under the H-1B visa. This is good news for international students majoring in STEM and interested in pursuing a job in the U.S.