In this session, we will explore the unique challenges of international students with respect to support for career-related skill development and experiences with career services on campus. We will present findings from quantitative and qualitative responses of more than 4,500 senior international students over the past five years at hundreds of four-year colleges and universities. Through discussion, participants will learn about international students’ confidence in using skills and abilities essential to their future careers and how institutions can create new career services supports for this large group of minoritized student

BrckaLorenz, Allison

Gopal, Kriti

Zhu, Yihan

IUScholarWorks

3/23/2021
1
Enhancing Career-
Preparation Equity for 
International Students
Allison BrckaLorenz
Associate Research Scientist, Center for Postsecondary Research (CPR), Indiana University 
Bloomington (IUB)
Yihan Zhu
NSSE Project Associate, CPR, Higher Education and Student Affairs Graduate Student, IUB
Kriti Gopal
NSSE Project Associate, CPR, Higher Education and Student Affairs Graduate Student, IUB
Presentation at the AAC&U Virtual Conference on Diversity, Equity, and Student Success, 2021 
What brings you to this 
session today?
Background Literature
• The preparation of college graduates to be successful in their future work is 
an essential purpose of higher education (Pasquerella, 2019)
• A lack of supportive services and support systems to cater the unique 
needs of international students (Lee, 2008)
• Internships can be a way to expand student learning beyond the classroom 
(Stansbie et al., 2016)
• International students rate career services as the campus service most in 
need of improvement (Roy et al., 2016)
• International students often have difficulty getting student visas (Lee,2008)
NSSE Data & Respondents
• Data collected from nearly 500 
four-year colleges and universities 
that participated in the National 
Survey of Student Engagement 
(NSSE) in 2018 and 2019
• NSSE is a survey of first-year and 
senior undergraduates focusing on 
their participation in effective 
educational activities
• Nearly 700 international students 
responded to the item we will 
focus on in this session
34
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International Student Country of Origin
Asia
Latin America &
Caribbean
Europe
Africa Sub-
Saharan
Middle East &
North Africa
Canada
Oceania
Career Plans
Immediate plans after graduation
• 54% full-time employment
• 23% graduate or professional 
school
• 11% part-time employment or 
internship
• 7% military service, service or 
volunteering, travel or gap year, 
other plans
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
Student Majors
Is there anything your institution could have 
done better to prepare you for your career or 
further education? Please describe.
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Coding Methodology
• Started with inductive coding
• Explored topics with a review of a selection of comments
• Created a rough sketch of themes
• Switched to deductive coding
• Placed quotes into our predetermined categories from above
• Quotes could be placed into more than one category
• Two new categories were created during the more rigorous coding process
• Quotes were reviewed for accuracy with respect to the new categories
• Thematic analysis
• Quotes were synthesized and summarized by our thematic categories
Results Overview
Institution-Level
Program-Level
People
• Career services
• International student services
• Funding
• Majors
• Classroom practice, technology
• Internships
• Faculty
• Advising
• Other
Career Services
• Help students establish short-term and long-term career goals.
• "It would have been nice to have access to information about 
internships and job opportunities relating to my major from my 
freshman and sophomore advisor who did not have enough information 
on selection of courses or of the preparations needed to get involved 
with advancing in your career."
• "Most of the companies that come for career fairs on campus don't hire 
international students and it is very disappointing."
Career services comments were disproportionately written by 
international students from Asia. p < .05
International Student Services
• Supportive services (visa, housing, and advising) to international 
students
• "Our institution is huge, so I found sometimes you need to seek 
for help and be aware of so that you will not miss activities and 
resources on campus."
• "Since a huge number of students attending the college are 
international students, I think it is important for all faculty members 
to be informed and aware of basic policies for immigration and how 
certain situations can impact the overall study and path of 
international students. "
• "Don't charge students for the bus because not everyone uses it."
Funding
• Scholarship opportunities and financial supports
• "Should have resources to support International students who befall 
financial needs due to unplanned circumstances"
• "Cheaper international tuition fees and more involvement and more 
opportunities for international students."
• "Concerned for future students to study in this college as the fees are 
very high."
• "More scholarship chance please."
Internships
• Part-time and summer work opportunities
• "For my major, I have two required internships in my degree work. We 
also have lots of internship and job opportunities posted in school 
website."
• "I personally believe nothing is done by the university to aid 
international students in their quest to obtain internships and or full 
time positions. We always feel left out when there is career fairs and 
scholarship opportunities at the University."
• "Probably mandatory internship program integration for related 
major."
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Technology
• Technical support and technology infrastructure
• "For the multimedia journalism program and communications 
department, we need definitely better equipment. We struggle a lot 
with the slow computers that do not run programs like Adobe 
Premier and Photoshop fast enough."
• "The computer center for the exam."
• "I wish we had gotten a chance to learn more about tech stuff."
• "Improving their approach to technology. Professors should try to 
teach students how to approach and use the tools to solve problems, 
I learned mostly on my own."
Classroom Practice
• The methods and styles of instructions used in classrooms
• "More hands-on experience in the classroom about how to apply 
what we have learned."
• "I think that it would be helpful to learn how our degrees can actually 
be useful in the workforce."
• "Having more practical based classes would help students 
understanding and performance."
• "Provide more help for students to develop interpersonal skills during 
course work."
#1 
Topic
Majors
• Mostly included programs or specific fields of study that students 
were looking for.
• "Had more classes related to my field"
• "I was misinformed that I couldn't change my major, but now I know I 
could"
• "Pre-med majors have no clinical application and the classes do not 
set students up to excel on the MCAT which is the next step for all 
pre-med majors. Having classes geared to the MCAT or an MCAT prep 
program at the school would help a lot of students"
Faculty
• Professors/instructors within the institution
• "More diversity in terms of professors. Also a higher amount of 
professors provided for a class."
• "Some professors are super professional in their field, but they were 
not professional teachers. In other words, they know a lot, but they 
do not know how to teach us."
• "More engaged professors that really care about their classes."
• "Have faculty that teach better."
Advising
• Support services provided to students
• "It would have been nice to have access to information about internships 
and job opportunities relating to my major from my freshman and 
sophomore advisor who did not have enough information on selection of 
courses or of the preparations needed to get involved with advancing in 
your career (student leadership programs, networking events, internships, 
etc)."
• "The advisors should be more aware of how to guide students with 
different characteristics, like transfer students. Transfer the Transcripts 
from other college or University should be a more clear process too."
Other, Honorable Mentions
• "My institution can build more student teams with 
more activities. And it can provide more volunteer activities. It is 
an excellent institution!!"
• "Please spent more resources on dealing with student’s mental 
issues and educate them on how to deal with it. Please teach 
people how to love and appreciate others than making money."
• "More inclusivity of international students -more green space"
• "Be inclusive not exclusive"
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How do these findings align (or not) with 
your experience?
What resonates most for you?
Action Plans!
What's one thing you can do tomorrow to improve the 
experiences of international students' career 
preparation?
What about next week?
Moving forward?
Questions? Thanks so much for joining us!
Find our slides as well as other information about NSSE at 
nsse.indiana.edu 
Allison BrckaLorenz: abrckalo@indiana.edu
Blog: NSSEsightings.indiana.edu
@NSSEsurvey
References
Lee, J. J. (2008). Beyond borders: International student pathways to the United States. Journal of 
Studies in International Education, 12(3), 308–327. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315307299418
Pasquerella, L. (2019). The purpose of higher education and its future. Liberal Education, 105 (3–
4). https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2019/summer-fall/president
Roy, M., Lu, Z., & Loo, B. (2016). Improving the international student experience: Implications for 
recruitment and support. World Education Services. Retrieved from wes.org/RAS
Stansbie, P., Nash, R., & Chang, S. (2016). Linking internships and classroom learning: A case study 
examination of hospitality and tourism management students. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport 
& Tourism Education, 19, 19–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhlste.2016.07.001
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Enhancing career-preparation equity for international students

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Enhancing career-preparation equity for international students

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