dilemma

Hi,

i am new to this site...i am in a dilemma , about when to start my OPT.
about myself, i am done with my course work, and working on the project. will be done with project defense by the end of august.

i am planning to start my OPT from Oct -15 th. is that too early or too late. i am saying too late coz, market looks good nowadays. so, if anything comes up in september i can\'t work.

please suggest me in this regard.


Thanks,

[Vasu]

Arudra,

Are you Computer Science graduate?

If, what technologies do you know?

Let me know so that i will throw some light.

hi,

thanks for the prompt reply..

yes, i have a BS degree in computer science from india and i\'ll be graduating with a MS degree in computer science.

apart from the basic skills c, c++, etc. i have very good background of Java(currently in MS) and Oracle(worked a lot during my BS). so, mainly looking in these two.

[Vasu]

Arudra,

If you start your OPT date after August 1st 2004, then you can file your H1 next year.

For example, If your OPT start date is : Aug 1st 2004, then it will expire by Aug 1st 2005. Two months grace period will be there to convert from OPT to H1. So by Oct 1st you can have H1. In this scenario you can apply for H1 in the next year.

The Java market will be good till Nov 15th 2004 for this year. Later it will be average.

If your project is going to complete by August ending, then it is not possible for you till August even if you get the job. becoz you need to complete the project/thesis.

If you are good at java, jsp, jdbc, ejb, servlets, struts then you will get the job in one month time.

As your project will complete by August ending, your job search will
start from Sept 1st.

So, you will get the job definetly by Oct 1st week.
Then you can start working from that time.

My suggestion is : Make your OPT start from Oct 1st 2004 only.
Why do you want to take chance filing before that and going into grace period status. Now you have option to chose.
So it is better to start your OPT from Oct 1st or 1st week of Oct.

Summary...
Your project ends by Aug 2004 end.
Job trial - one month.
So it will be Sep 2004 ending.
So by Oct 2004 you will be in job.
So start your OPT from Oct 2004.

Hope this helps.

If you have any doubts let me know.

Note: As you are in Java field, we have java interview q in our site, you can go thru them. Around 80% of q from interview will get from those.

Post edited by: vasu, at: 2004/07/22 18:46

Hi,

Thanks a lot for clarifying the things.
hopefully things will go as u said.

once again thanks for the reply, i greatly appreciate you guys efforts in helping out people like me.