I am an international student due to start my first year this fall at ASU. I applied as a biological sciences major but will be changing my major to business once I get there. However, I wanted to ask, is business a good major for my bachelors? As an international student, will there be job opportunities for me?
Secondly, I’ve read that companies need to sponsor a work visa for you to stay there after graduation. How to ensure that?
Also, I will be doing my masters as well, but to get into any good business school in the US you need to have at least 2 years work experience, right? So for that how do you ensure that you get a work visa of at least 2-3 years?
Please help me clear my doubts- I have practically no knowledge about all this stuff, and nobody in my family has ever done something like this. Please let me know.
Also, any helpful tips will always be appreciated!
“Good” is relative. It depends on your goals. You say you want to do a masters at a business school (MBA?). You don’t necessarily need an undergraduate business degree to do an MBA.
You can’t ensure that. You will need to be an outstanding candidate, better than other American candidates applying to the same jobs. Second, even if you find an employer who will sponsor you, you then need to enter into a visa lottery to actually get a work visa. Lastly, for permanent residency the employer will need to further sponsor you for a green card. Depending on your country of citizenship, this could take from a few years to over 13-14 years.
In short: it’s not an easy process and you should not rely on being able to work in the US (except for 1 year after graduation on something called “optional practical training”).
Work experience is recommended but not necessarily required.
Whether you have a stem degree or not will determine whether you can stay on OPT for 1 year or 3 years after you graduate at an employer in the US before you have to convert to H1 or leave the country. And a business degree is not a stem degree. I am not sure if biology is considered stem for these purposes.
It depends on the exact biology major. If it’s listed here it qualifies for the 24 month OPT extension.
But OP plans to switch to business, and that doesn’t qualify.
OP-- none of us can predict the job market four years from now, and none of us can predict what changes may or may not take place in the current immigration system.
However, you should NOT assume that you’ll be staying in the US to work long term after your Bachelor’s. There are certain times within the highly cyclical job market where big companies are desperate for workers and so they are willing to go through the time, expense and administrative hassle to sponsor foreign workers with specific skills (not just “Business Major”, but “Skilled financial analyst with expertise in valuation who has passed the first level of the CFA exam”.) And then there are other times where the time and expense just isn’t worth it.
Regardless of the labor market, it has historically been true that MORE technical is better than less, and that MORE degrees are better than fewer. So getting sponsored with a Master’s in Data Analysis is a likelier bet than getting sponsored with a Bachelor’s in business focused on organizational behavior. And the golden ticket is the O visa-- generally reserved for “Aliens of Exceptional ability” which is typically a PhD with publications in peer reviewed journals or appearances at global conferences.
You should reach out to the International student office at ASU now-- before you do anything- and they can walk you through the process and your options. You will need them to get the LPT/OPT, so the sooner you start your relationship with them, the easier it will be for you down the road. They can also spell out for you the “do’s and don’ts” of a student visa- where you can work and for how many hours, how to know if an employer is taking advantage of you (which is important to know- you might not care but if you violate the law your visa can get revoked), etc. Better to know your options now before the semester starts.
Good luck!
What is a visa lottery?
There are a limited number of H1 s given out every year based on a lottery.
Ohh okay… got it. 
Should I get a double major then? Such as Economics and Business Data Analytics or Business Entrepreneurship and Business Data Analytics?
I think the business data analytics major is considered a STEM one. So if I combine it with another business major, will that allow me to stay on OPT for 3 years after graduation after which I will have to convert it to H1?
Ohh thanks for letting me know about that, I didn’t know we could do that 
Potentially yes, you may be able to work for 3 years on your OPT but it does not make the H1 visa application any easier.
The message Blossom and I are trying to convey is that you shouldn’t bank on being able to live permanently in the U.S. after graduation. If it works out for you, great. But it’s not easy.
Don’t make a decision based on “I think”. The International Student office will have recent experience- current juniors and the about to graduate seniors- and will be able to give you actual data.
Don’t assume.
Don’t make your life decisions based on a guy that someone knows who is the brother-in-law of someone who plays chess with your uncle.
If you want something in the realm of business, but also an OPT-eligible STEM degree, there are a number of options. You’ve probably looked this up already, but both the Business Data Analytics major that you mentioned, and the Computer Information Systems major in the business school, as well as Econ, are STEM-designated.
I don’t know whether switching into an engineering major is possible, but if it is, you might also look at Industrial Engineering, which sits at the intersection of engineering and business. This could be a highly-employable STEM degree, if it interests you and if it’s available to you: https://degrees.apps.asu.edu/major-map/ASU00/ESIEEBSE/null/ALL/2022
There’s no particular need to do a double major for which both majors are STEM (like Econ + Business Data Analytics that you mentioned). But if there’s a particular major you really want, that is not STEM, combining it with a STEM major could be smart. (One extremely highly-regarded business major at ASU, that is not STEM-designated, is Supply Chain Management. This can be a great field for someone with an international perspective.)
Find out what programs are open to you, first of all.
Ohh okay
Yes… @blossom. Thanks for giving me that piece of advice.
Oh alright!
I was thinking of doing a double major where one of them would be business management and the other, business data analytics. How does that seem?
That could be okay, but it could be that the second major won’t provide any real value-added in terms of future opportunities. I know that when you’re immersed in the academic world, racking up as many majors, minors, etc. as possible can feel like the goal. But eventually the “gotta catch 'em all” mindset bumps up against the real world, where employers really don’t care if you have a general “management” major in addition to your data analytics major, or not. They will care what knowledge base and skills you’ve acquired, but they won’t care whether you did that by completing one major and choosing electives wisely, or whether those electives added up to a minor, or whether they added up to a whole second major. It won’t matter much even in the end, much less now. Since a STEM major is important to your goal of working in the US after graduation, pick the STEM major you like best (which seems to be the data analytics one) and start out in that. Look at the four-year maps for the majors that interest you, and see where they overlap and where they diverge. (For example, there is very little difference in the first three semesters, between data analytics and management.) For any second major that interests you, look at what specific coursework it would add to your overall program, and why it would interest you and/or add value to your background. (Also note that the webpage for each major includes this section (italics added by me): “Concurrent Program Options: Students pursuing concurrent degrees (also known as a “double major”) earn two distinct degrees and receive two diplomas. Working with their academic advisors, students can create their own concurrent degree combination. Some combinations are not possible due to high levels of overlap in curriculum.”) Also consider the opportunity cost - what else could you be doing with the time a second business major would take? What kind of career do you want, and what skills do you want to bring to it? Would, for example, achieving fluency in another language that’s in high demand in the sector you want to work in, be more valuable than doubling up on business majors? Look at the range of minors and certificate programs - maybe something like the entrepreneurship minor (which has a variety of different emphases to choose from) would enhance your primary major more efficiently than a double major would. Or doing one of the accelerated BS/MS pathways in four years, instead of a double BS. Just go in with the one primary major (and even that can change) and figure it out as you learn more about what the program is like and what you want to get out of it.