Some of our educated brothers and sisters are increasingly unhappy and openly frustrated with USA way of life. Highly educated Tanzanians are currently working in embarrassing lower paying jobs like nursing assistants, hard labor and taxi drivers. Most of them who rushed to USA just after their college graduation walk are increasingly find themselves out of touch with reality, most of them are still fantasizing how good their peers are doing back home, most of them are turn their frustration to clubs and prostitution to end pain inside. This forced me to ask myself two questions (1) why (2) what can we do to help them.
(1) Why? USA is very different from TV shows or fanatic lifestyle you all see on TV when you land in USA you are going to find out three important things (a) You must work to survive (b) Education is very expensive (c) You have a big possibility of violating US-Laws and traditional morals on the process of succeeding in U.S.A. You need to know the following in detail first.
Work to survive:
If you work without a permit is illegal, given that fact if you dont have enough money in your pocket minimum of $1600 a month you must work. To work in USA you need personal identification number called Social Security Number, so that means you need Social Security Card for work identification. The problem you are going to face is most highly paying jobs are increasingly sensitive to illegal Social Security Cards, which are mandatory to any job. The other problem you are going to face is the fact that your USA host friends are not going to let you jobless just because of documents since everybody is doing it why not you? From beginning of your journey you are going to find yourself compromising your traditional morals and dreams you have for USA. After few months without any source of income you are going to find yourself under desperation and pressure to do something quick to make a living possible.
Social Security Number:
To work legally in USA you need Social Security Number, but due to political pressures the process of getting Social Security is more complicated than ever. For International Student to get SSN # you need to be In Status and that means to be a full time student.
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Education:
For an international student to qualify for any benefit he/she must be in student status, that means you need to maintain 12hrs of college classes per semester and your performance status should be good academic standings. Together with education one of advantage of good status includes Social Security Letter, which students used to get Social Security Number. For a regular State college cost of international student for 12 hours semester is ranging from $4000-$8,000 plus or minus, One Year is two semesters. This cost is not only ridiculous but also laughable for a middle class young Tanzania to keep up with. Some Students with higher performance in GMAT or GRE may get a break of paying out of state fees, so the real cost is going to be around $2,000-$5,000. You must also consider the fact that getting scholarship is easy said than done.
What can we do to help them?
Theres no clear answer to this questions everybody think differently, however I am going to give my opinion honestly.
Social Behavior:
In my first paragraph some people may end up with conclusion that I called all Tanzanians graduate frustrated but I am not.
Background:
Young Tanzanians started a massive immigration to USA in 1996, most of them young student who completed their Advance levels. Most of them aged between 20-23 years of age. With older Tanzanians distance themselves with this young Tanzanians they learned fast how to hustle. This young group went through ups and downs just like any other young people but at the end of day they learned how to maneuver complicated life in USA. Those Tanzanians who came here after college find themselves living the past of their fellow high school classmates example documents hustles, boyfriends and girlfriends, clubbing. The only problem is the fact that now they have to do this at 25-27 years of age and not early 20s. This group who went to high school together find themselves share very few things in common socially example. Those Tanzanians graduates came here with the altitude that they are smarter than their fellow high school mates because they did not make to local colleges like UD, Mzumbe or Sokoine, but their fellow mates who immigrate to USA became more matured and street smarter. This situation put many Tanzanians who graduate abroad very uncomfortable, most of them decide early they rather face problems with lack of street awareness rather than shameful asking embarrassing question or help to those who they ones consider looser. The behavior is still common here in United States.
What is your Take on this? Stay and Hustle or Go home before is too late?