A weakening rupee and not so friendly visa and immigration policies have severely hampered the excitement in joining US universities in India. Though the US remains a dream destination to most Indian students, the annual increase in enrolments has dropped in the past 2 years compared to earlier figures.

Experts say that enrolments of Indian students in US universities will further decline in the years ahead as post-study work options are drying up owning to the current US government’s policies.

However, there is light behind the dark clouds and the good news is that the growth of students pursuing Optional Practical Training (OPT) has been significant in the last few years. OPT students this year number more than 75000 who constitute approximately 40% of the 200,000 Indian students in the US.

Most engineering and computer sciences graduate together constituting about 70% of Indian students in the US prefer to complete their OPT which has resulted in the doubling of the number of Indian students in the last 10 years. In the past decade or so the number of Indians are looking for a great education and the US continues to offer this. The highlight is that Business Analytics or Data Science and AI has emerged to be great learning opportunities for Indian students to make a career in the US says Dr. Raja Roy Choudhury, Director Academic Affairs, Universal Business School to throw light on the said subject.

“We are offering a pathway program in Data Science & Analytics to help our students join an MS degree program in Business Analytics at the University of Dallas. The MS degree is a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) designated degree program which entitles a student on completion to avail 3 years of OPT. It works such that students first avail 1 year of OPT and then receive an authorization for a further 2 years”, says Dr. Roy Choudhury.

Dr. Roy Choudhury further adds that “the trend of good students taking the STEM degree route to avail 3 years of OPT will continue in the field of emerging technology and Indian students will continue to hone their skills, gain appreciable knowhow and experience to engage in suitable employment as the demand-supply gap for trained hands in analytics, AI, Machine Learning, IoT and related fields of emerging technology is huge.”

Dr. Raja Roy Choudhury can be contacted @ 9372868220 or [email protected]
The views expressed in this column are his personal opinion.