Linking Up With Local Resources
Cities and regions need skilled workers, especially in healthcare professions and STEM careers, to drive economic growth. It is not difficult to imagine how experienced, foreign-educated professionals could potentially meet the needs of local employers if they had the right educational opportunities and support. The community college, as the local academic institution, can play a leadership role in addressing the problem of “brain waste” in the local community by developing educational opportunities to create pathways to success.
Resources in your college or community
Quiz-summary
0 of 5 questions completed
Questions:
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Information
This quiz assesses how much you know about resources in your college or community that could help your students.
You have already completed the quiz before. Hence you can not start it again.
Quiz is loading...
You must sign in or sign up to start the quiz.
You have to finish following quiz, to start this quiz:
Results
Time has elapsed
You have reached 0 of 0 points, (0)
Categories
- Not categorized 0%
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- Answered
- Review
-
Question 1 of 5
1. Question
Does the foreign-educated immigrant student sitting in your office or classroom have a professional background in the health care field, broadly defined to include not only nurses, pharmacists, doctors and dentists, but also lab technicians and physical therapists?
Correct
One of the first things you want to tell them about is about the Welcome Back Initiative and its constituent Welcome Back Centers in 10 cities that support immigrant professionals in being re-licensed. Otherwise, short-term certification in an entry-level or related field can help newcomers remain in healthcare and begin to reestablish their careers.
Incorrect
Are you sure? Immigrants may not volunteer this information if there are in basic ESL classes or low-wage employment. Does your intake form capture this information? Have you asked them what they did in their home country? Encourage them to aspire to utilizing their education and skills to resume their careers, or to retrain for a new career.
-
Question 2 of 5
2. Question
Does the foreign-educated student sitting in your office or classroom have an educational and professional background in one of the STEM fields – science, technology, engineering or mathematics?
Correct
Did you know that colleges often recruit these students from abroad while there are already many immigrants with these skills on campus? There may be programs in your college already in place for international students that are ideally suited for your immigrant students. Workplace training or company internships arranged in collaboration with the college are particularly helpful in transitioning to employment.
For instance, Bluegrass Community & Technical Collegehas found that its biotechnology degree programs and certificates are especially attractive to foreign-educated students with backgrounds in nursing, science and medicine because they lead to well-paying careers in a wide range of industry settings.
For a foreign-educated student with a background in computer science, the range of relevant offerings and career choices at a typical community college is, if anything, even wider.
• There are two-year, credit-based A.S degrees in Computer Science and A.A.S. degrees in Computer Information Systems.
• There are short-term, credit-based certificates in computer programming, computer-aided design, web development, and cyber-security.
• There are non-credit certificates for computer-service technicians, Cisco certification, Android & iPhone application developers, and health care Information Technology (IT) technicians.See, for example, the list of more than fifty IT offerings at South Texas College’s School of Continuing, Professional and Workforce Education.
Incorrect
Are you sure? Immigrants may not volunteer this information if there are in basic ESL classes or low-wage employment. Does your intake form capture this information? Have you asked them what they did in their home country? Encourage them to aspire to utilizing their education and skills to resume their careers, or to retrain for a new career.
-
Question 3 of 5
3. Question
Does your college partner with any industries or big employers to provide academic training that addresses local labor shortages?
Correct
Excellent!
Are these opportunities and partnerships advertised in a place where immigrants will see them? Immigrants who already have some post-secondary education or a degree from their home country will benefit from specific skill training that can result in employment.
Incorrect
Even so, most colleges provide information about internships in their career office as a bridge to employment. Immigrant students may not be familiar with what they are, why they are valuable and how to find them. Are these opportunities advertised in a place in your college where immigrants will see them?
-
Question 4 of 5
4. Question
Is there a mentorship program in the community that can help foreign-educated students expand their network?
Correct
Great!
Do you refer foreign-educated students to such programs to help with networking skills? How do they find out about them?
Incorrect
Mentors can be found even if there is not a formal program. Here’s how:
• Ask your career office to explore the agencies in your community that sponsor mentorship programs, such as Upwardly Global.
• Link students with community organizations like Toastmaster, and professional associations in their field where they might find a mentor.
• Contact local employers to give back to the community by making their professional workforce available as mentors to immigrant professionals. -
Question 5 of 5
5. Question
Are there career pathways in your college that could build on a foreign-educated students’ prior work experience and transferable skills, for example in accounting or sales or management?
Correct
Congratulations! You are part of a growing national trend.
• Many community colleges now offer an enormous variety of short term and “stackable credentials” along different career pathways.
• Helping students to assess their “transferable skills” can open many doors in unforeseen directions.No matter what your role, you can convey to your students that the U.S. has a more dynamic and fluid approach to career development and career progression than many countries, and most of us will change careers several times. This is not necessarily well-understood by immigrants who are focused on resuming their careers when they arrive. Especially if relicensing is involved, there may be other options to consider.
Incorrect
If your college does not employ a “career pathways” model that lines up courses for students to achieve occupation-specific credentials in an efficient way, you can still promote the value of an immigrant’s prior learning and work experience.
• Can you encourage your foreign-educated students to see an academic advisor for more direction, especially in understanding the difference between credit and non-credit courses?
• If resuming their original career is not realistic, how can you help them identify skills on which they can build a foundation for a new or related career?No matter what your role, you can convey to your students that the U.S. has a more dynamic and fluid approach to career development and career progression than many countries, and most of us will change careers several times.
• This is not necessarily well-understood by immigrants who are focused on resuming their careers when they arrive.
• Especially if re-licensing is involved, there may be other options to consider.
Previous
