ABSTRACT
With the accelerating trends of globalization, neoliberalism, and education internationalization, an increasing number of international students choose to study in US community colleges. In order to understand these students' unique career development path, our chapter reviews the career expectations and aspirations of international students attending US community colleges, the common challenges during their career preparations, and provides an overview of on-campus career services provided by community colleges. Among other reasons that will be discussed, we found that international students value American higher education because it provides a high level of career training, more specialized degree options, and can lead to a degree that will make the student more competitive in the international job market when compared to receiving a degree in their home country. We noted several challenges faced by international students during their career preparations, including language and cultural barriers, lack of social capital, unfavorable immigration policies, and perceived employer biases. We also found that community college career services may be more helpful to international students if counselors familiarize themselves with a student's cultural norms and language ability, and are prepared to address common topics such as Immigration and Naturalization Service rules that affect an international student's employment in the United States. We then discuss the limitations of current research and provide future research directions. In the end, we present implications of the findings for community colleges to better support international students' career development needs.
