A simple survey will identify international faculty members who can have a vital role to play in advising and informally mentoring immigrant students.

Some community colleges offer business students the opportunity to work one-on-one with a corporate mentor. Students visit their volunteer corporate mentors at work and get help from their mentors to explore career options and the professional working world.

These kinds of mentoring programs, intended for all students, can be especially valuable for internationally-educated students who may have no idea how to network professionally in the U.S. A mentor can be vital in helping them gain a professional foothold in the community.

What could you do to encourage these clubs to recruit more immigrant students? The faculty who advise these and other clubs, and the students who participate in them, are a rich source of connections and informal advising for foreign-educated immigrants?

Here’s how student clubs helped students at one college: Montgomery College in Maryland surveyed students in its non-credit ESL programs to find out more about their prior employment, educational experience, and career goals. Based on that survey, Montgomery College recruited community volunteers to run Career Clubs for its ESL students. The three Career Clubs – in health care, business, and education – provide an opportunity for ESL students at any level of proficiency to talk with professionals working in the field, network, and practice their English. With the help of the professional volunteers, Montgomery College’s participating ESL students can polish their resumes and research prospective jobs.