Internship/CPT FAQs

As an F-1 international student, you are only eligible for CPT if the opportunity is "an integral part of your academic curriculum". This means you must be recieveing academic credit for the experience or it must be required by the department for graduation. If this does not apply to your situation, then you can consider applying for pre-completion OPT instead.

Yes!

• Examples of true volunteer work are: working at an animal shelter, a homeless shelter, or helping to serve food at a soup kitchen
• Example of an internship: assisting at a graphic design company to learn practical skills and build your resume

Contact Maggie Shirland, International Student Advisor and bring as much information about the opportunity as possible with you.

Students are required to complete their internship within 2 weeks of the end of the semester they are registered for credit for.  In rare cases, students will sometimes register for academic credit again in the following semester and continue working for the same company.  However, normally they will need to show that they are learning new skills or taking on a slightly different role than the one they had during the first internship experience.  Please Contact Career Development with further questions about this.

Yes, it is true that if you are authorized for more than 11.5 months of full-time (20 hours or more per week) CPT, you will lose your eligibility to apply for OPT.  However, because CPT is normally concurrent with the semester, most students are authorized for 3-4 months of CPT (1 semester) at a time.  Even when students participate in more than one internship, or complete a full-time internship over the summer, they do not come close to the 12 months maximum.