<p>I read on an early thread that int'l students at Williams who come in on FA sometimes get as part of their package a round trip Airfare ticket to their home country, but only 1x a year.</p>
<p>What do these students do otherwise for the rest of all the vacations, if they are the internationals needing FA?</p>
<p>Any current or former Williams students know?</p>
<p>Those students can either stay on campus or ask to stay with a friend’s family during the breaks if they can’t afford to travel home. If you stay on campus, you usually have to move to another dorm room temporarily because the heat/electricity in most of the buildings are turned off.</p>
<p>foxy, can intl students do research with profs during the summer?</p>
<p>Yeah, definitely! Anyone involved with summer science research (which is a lot of students) gets free housing during the summer. Otherwise, there are a limited number of humanities research positions that include housing (some do not), and summer administrative jobs that do not, i.e. you have to give a cut of your earnings to the college to pay for a dorm room. I don’t know of any legal issues that international students would have with doing research here over the summer, but then again I’m not exactly sure what the policies are.</p>
<p>I graduated from Williams in 2010 (international student). First summer, I got a WCMA internship; minimum wage pay and no free housing/food, but I was grateful to have a job and working at the museum was always fun. Next two summers, I did physics research under the Summer Science Research Fellowship, which guarantees free housing, good pay and other perks.</p>
<p>So, in short, any Williams student can do on-campus summer research. There may be restrictions regarding off-campus positions (even with college faculty), but arrangements and exceptions can always be made.</p>
<p>I wasn’t on FA at Williams, but, yes, every intl on FA got a free round trip home only once a year. Other holidays, I’m sure you’ll find alternatives, friends or places to visit, etc. Spring break you have to switch dorms or leave except you’re a senior writing a thesis. Winter breaks, they now have a dorm open for internationals (which was a big deal as internationals in my day had to absolutely leave during winter break). Thanksgiving, you are welcome to stay on campus, as well as dead week, except things have changed.</p>