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From academia as an international student to the US Air Force – How it works is what I cover in this post. Answering this question I got on LinkedIn:

Thanks, Oindree for connecting. So, I see you came to the US for BS and now you are working for the Air Force. I worked in the past for the federal govt. I was wondering what pathway did you use to enter the Air Force? My understanding is that apart from the Dept of HHS, other Agencies do not have pathways for permanent positions. Are you a US citizen now? From your blog/book I figured out that you were international/non-US at that time. Not that I want to join the Air Force, but little curious. By the way, your story during your Ph.D. application resonates well with my struggles also applying to grad school here. Free food from seminars during my Ph.D. and postdoc was awesome.

Thank you so much for this question. I’m sorry that I’m getting back a bit late. It’s been a crazy couple of months because I switched jobs this year. The pandemic has been a crazy time. I was mainly going in and then I switched jobs in November and now I’m actually able to work from home and have a bit more flexibility because I can do something like this (podcast) and then work longer in the evening.

I did come to the USA to do a Bachelor of Science. I know a lot of international students when they do come to the USA it might be for a master’s or higher.

I finished up High School in India and I came here right after high school and so yes you’re right I came to the US After High School to do my undergrad and I actually double majored in physics in chemistry and double minored in math and music –  it was a crazy time.

I was very excited about all the opportunities that I was going to get in the US in college. I knew that that was very different from in India and that was what excited me a lot – that you don’t have to pick one major or one topic, you get a breadth of experience.

I was never able to really choose between physics or chemistry until grad school and I knew I could do both in college and kind of figure it out. So those were some of the reasons for coming to the US and how I ended up here today.

Because I came a little bit younger or a little bit earlier in life than some other students, I started to set up my life in the US a bit more than maybe somebody who is coming later on.

I was open to new experiences and making new connections and learning about this new culture and becoming part of the United States of America in a way where I was also learning to be an American.

Even though I’m from India and that’s my origin, I really embraced the American culture and way of living in many ways. Not that I have discarded my Indian background and that’s always going to be there but I was able to integrate quite a bit in the US.

I never left so basically even though I came to do my BS and when I was coming I thought that I would go back after college was done but you never know what life has in-store right like you think you have a plan oh I’m going to the US to do college and then I’ll come back but then that’s not what ended up happening.

By the time I was in my junior year I was pretty determined to continue even higher education in the US and go into the line of research mainly in physics topics, so I realized that I wanted to pursue grad school in physics.

That required a tremendous amount of preparation and pushing of research and work and classes and all kinds of things in undergrad. Like you want to make a good case, build a really good case for getting into grad school and even then you might have trouble as an international student.

Academia as an international student 

I had a struggle getting into graduate school as an international student. As an international person in your undergrad or grad, for example, the summer REU program research experience for undergrads is only open to domestic students.

So yes there are a tremendous number of opportunities that are open only to US citizens even in something like college. Some people might be surprised on hearing this but it is the reality for internationals.

When I came to the US for college, I definitely felt the difference like you come here for studies you are paying tuition and I’m lucky that my parents were able to pay my tuition in college and we picked a school with less tuition rather than a lot of tuition and we did fine but there’s definitely a lot of difficulties there’s definitely a lot of differences between the opportunities available to a domestic American citizen person and an international student.

I think having undergraduate research experience makes you greatly much more competitive for getting into graduate school and since it is kind of hard to get in so you want to be competitive.

I didn’t take part in an REU but I kind of devised my own research programs or my research projects through research advisors in college. I worked very hard to create a profile that was good enough for getting into graduate school and even then I kind of struggles as I applied to 11 schools and got into only 3.

I’m not saying that you’re going to have the same problems in academia as an international student because there are other subtleties involved, for example, knowing people at the graduate programs you are applying to. When you apply really cold where you didn’t know anybody in the department or one of your professors or research advisor didn’t know anybody in that department then it’s really tough, like near impossible because that’s how competitive it is.

So I would say that part of my struggles might have been that I was applying to places where I wasn’t implementing that Networking aspect that is very much needed especially as you go higher and higher and higher in any field like college to grad school to postdoc to Professor.

Or, grad school to an industry job or industry job to another industry job or industry job to the government like what I did now.

I would say definitely implement the networking feature if you’re struggling in academia as an international student or in any industry. 

From academia as an international student to the US Air Force (YouTube video) 

How did I get this job in the Air Force?

I came to the USA to join academia as an international student in college, then I did grad school then I got a job at Booz Allen Hamilton so that’s the industry so I went from grad school directly to an industry job and then I got hired by basically my client.

Booz Allen Hamilton is a consulting firm that serves mainly the government – different wings of the government – anything you can think of and my client was the Air Force so I made connections in the Air Force. And those are the people who hired me for my current job now so that’s basically how it works.

How did I become a US citizen? 

That’s the part where I met my former husband in college. I was young and made friends, I met my ex-husband, we were together for many years and then we got married. He was a US citizen and I applied for a green card and got citizenship through marriage although it took several years. After that, I was able to apply to jobs that were citizen only.

Even my first job from Academia to Industry (Booz) required that I had to be a citizen so I was able to do that job because I had already become a citizen.

Over ten years in the USA

I came to the US in 2009 that makes it over 10 years but I have been a citizen for less than 3 years… I became a citizen in 2018. I became a citizen, finished grad school, however, you can’t always control the timeline of these things.

It’s not like I planned this, it just so happened. Life took its turns and twists and it so happened that I met someone in college to whom I ended up getting married to which resulted in applying for a green card and getting citizenship while I was also going to college and grad school.

So part of why how I went from International bachelor’s student to now in the Air Force is really just life and me trying to do the best I can and trying to make the best of whatever I have.

In the US, there are many, many jobs that are open to only US citizens. However, there are also a ton of opportunities open to everybody. When I got into grad school, I entered as an international student so I did not need to be a US citizen to go to Ohio State University.

Attitude to push for opportunities

I would say having an attitude to push for an opportunity which is something immigrants naturally do quite well definitely opens up a lot of opportunities.

I could have been a postdoc or lecturer and just remained in academia, too, and that would not have required citizenship. I might still go back to academia.

After graduate school, I was applying to jobs and most of them did not require citizenship. I just ended up in consulting through a referral from a friend in grad school.

I got the job and I was like, you know what, I’m going to take it! I want to do something that I’ve never done before. So I went from Academia to Consulting and then I was Consulting for the Air Force and then the Air Force wanted to hire me directly as a civilian employee and that is how I ended up in my current role. I feel quite lucky about this actually because not everybody has the chance to be a government employee – there are a lot of benefits and perks, I think, I don’t know as I’m still new to it but definitely is an opportunity that is both unique and rare!