Every year, students from other countries come to the U.S. to attend OU. As of fall 2025, over 2,000 international students from 136 countries attend OU, according to the university’s international admissions website.
Three international students who graduated from OU last year shared their struggles navigating the U.S. job market and finding employment.
Finding a place
Vitoria Correia, a ballet dancer from Sao Paulo, Brazil, graduated from OU in May with a bachelor’s in ballet pedagogy. Correia now lives in New York, where she works as a freelance dance teacher and a resident life assistant at the School of American Ballet. She performed in the Brooklyn Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker” in December.
Correia has been dancing since she was 7 and said her time at OU made her realize she loved teaching ballet. She said she hopes to stay in the U.S., where there are more job opportunities for dance.
“Coming to the U.S., I started to expand and explore a lot more (in) my dancing and my way of making art and teaching as well (as) sharing with the different communities,” Correia said. “I found a place in doing that here. That I can raise my voice and be heard.”
Correia said though she believes the U.S. supports professions in the arts more than other countries, it’s hard for international students to get hired. Often, dance companies don’t understand work permits or don’t believe international employees have them, she said.
Correia has an Optional Practical Training permit, or OPT, which is an employment authorization that allows graduated students with F-1 visas to work in the U.S. for up to one year.
“It’s hard to find a place that either they know what we’re talking about when we say ‘OPT,’ or that they are willing to learn, and (it’s) much, much harder to find one that is willing to sponsor a different type of visa,” Correia said.
Visa sponsorship allows employers to support an employee’s application for an immigration work visa. Filing fees for the sponsor amount to about $2,000, but other legal or processing fees can add up, according to a frequently asked questions page by Boundless, an immigration service company.
Ballet audition season began in January. Correia plans to look for work at a dance company that will sponsor her visa. She said she’s working with an immigration lawyer to obtain a more permanent visa to remain in the U.S.
Finish line frustration
Gloria Nakyagaba, a graduate research assistant and lecturer in OU’s College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, is from Kampala, Uganda. Nakyagaba graduated from OU with a doctorate in geography and environmental sustainability in August. She also holds a master’s degree in geography and a bachelor’s degree in geography education, which she earned in Uganda.
Nakyagaba applied for jobs across the U.S, United Kingdom and Uganda at the beginning of her final year at OU, but said she was rejected by all of them. She applied for her OPT in May, but it was delayed for months due to a backlog, finally coming in at the end of August after she paid for expedited processing.
“I really got sick, and I even remember twice going to the emergency room,” Nakyagaba said. “Later, I (learned) that it was stress and anxiety.”
The research assistant position opened right before the fall semester started and Nakyagaba began work without enough time to prepare.
Nakyagaba said she did everything she was supposed to do — searching for jobs, applying for her OPT on time and meeting every deadline — but not hearing back about employment became frustrating. She said she’s proud of herself for being resilient, but she was afraid and stressed.
“It is difficult to tell a student that is ready at the finish line to not stress about not having a job, because for me, the worst fear was being a Ph.D. graduate that was jobless,” Nakyagaba said.
‘Bad timing’
Amos Akena graduated from OU in May with a master’s in regional and city planning and now works as a planning technician for county government in Fallon, Nevada. Akena is from Gulu, Uganda, and also holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from a university in Uganda.
Throughout his time at OU, Akena attended several planning conferences to build relationships, which helped him connect with a construction company in Oklahoma City he shadowed for a few months. However, he said he had to turn down multiple internship opportunities while in school because he didn’t have a car and couldn’t afford housing in another city.
Akena said he began to look for jobs in March and submitted over 170 applications. He interviewed for many of them but did not hear back from any.
Akena said interviewers would hear his accent or see his education background and quickly realize he wasn’t American. Companies didn’t want to incur the added cost of visa sponsorship, he said, and national political leaders emphasized prioritizing American workers over immigrants.
“They were focusing on America first, right?” Akena said. “That’s not a bad thing – that’s a good thing. But you are an international student, you want to gain some experience, right? It’s just bad timing for all of that.”
Many of Akena’s peers didn’t get jobs, electing to pursue a doctorate instead, he said. Akena said his professors told him they had never seen the job market so tough before.
The labor market slowed over the summer due to a sharp decline in jobs creation. According to the ADP’s National Employment Report for November, jobs in small companies with under 50 employees are decreasing and pay growth slowed across sectors.
Advice for international students
Correia encouraged international students to use their time in university to build their professional network. She said the faculty in the OU School of Dance are amazing and can help students find jobs after graduation. Correia also used OU’s Career Center, which she said helped keep her on track to develop professionally.
OU’s Career Center can help students adjust their resume, build their social media and get professional photos.
Regardless of how many rejections they get, Correia said students should continue applying for opportunities, though they may often have to explain what OPT is and that they’re legal residents — she said it’s important to keep trying.
“It can be hard to talk about this topic because I feel that immigration itself is a very hot topic nowadays and kind of scary for people that are not from here, but I really encourage you to just speak up, show off yourself, ” Correia said.
Akema said it’s important for students to build relationships within their industry by attending conferences and professional events. He encouraged international students to share their ideas and listen to other people’s stories and interests too.
“People are very much interested in hearing your story,” Akema said. “They want to listen, they want to know you, where you come from. They want to know if you have something that you can contribute, they want to know if you have ideas.”
Connections Akema made still reach out to him to check in, he said, and he’s helped connect friends with job opportunities. He also said students should build relationships with their colleagues.
Nakyagaba encouraged international students to not be deterred by rejections because today’s job market isn’t favorable for them. She said looking for work is mentally draining, and she encouraged students to pursue emotional support and counseling as they navigate entering the workforce.
“You’ve done everything right to get yourself to this point,” Nakyagaba said. “I do not wish for any student right now to feel like they have failed or they are not good enough for whichever jobs that they are applying for.”
This story was edited by Anusha Fathepure, Ana Barboza, Natalie Armour and Thomas Pablo. This story was copy edited by Kylie Caldwell and Gretchen Schultz.
date: 2026-02-13 23:15:00