My First Day

It was September.  I had arrived at the airport and had to find my own way to my new dormitory.  It was difficult to communicate fluently with others because my first language was so different from the language in this country.  I was full of emotion, both good and bad.  I was nervous and excited; scared and ecstatic; shy and adventurous.

 

My Dormitory Building

Arriving at the dormitory, I didn’t know anybody else.  The others were from many different countries.  Some of them had already been here for years, and others had also just arrived like me.  I was pretty tired from the trip, so the first thing I wanted to do was go to my room and take a shower.  It had been quite a long flight after all…

 

I wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t.  There was just too much to see and experience!  I knew that the best way to get off the right foot was to meet new people.  But how do I approach them?  What do I say?  Doesn’t matter, just go say “Hi” and introduce myself.  So that’s what I did.  And because I forced myself to take that initiative, I met two other students from England and the Netherlands.

Park near our dormitory

 

All three of us had just arrived that day.  We talked about our thoughts of our new home, as well as where we came from.  And what were we supposed to do on our first day in this new country?  Of course, we decided to simply take a walk!  We walked for a couple hours before we found a small bar where we decided to have a drink.

After returning to the dorm, I tried to sleep.  The time difference between here and my home country was 16 hours.  Or was it 17?  I was too tired to remember, but not tired enough to sleep.  I thought about the day I had just experienced.  I had just traveled around the world and was now trying to sleep in a bed…that was in a room…that was in a building…in one of the largest cities in the world.  A building full of strangers, soon to be friends, who all shared the same feeling as myself…a feeling of loneliness accompanied by unrivaled excitement.

I laid there thinking about my first day.  It is a day that I’ll never forget.  My first day that I was fully immersed in a foreign culture.  My first day in Tokyo, Japan.  My first day as an international student.  A day that I’ll never forget.

Do you remember your first day?

Tokyo, Japan

UWB Business Students: Here is how you can be eligible for STEM OPT extension!

We are excited to announce that the School of Business’s Supply Chain Management concentration here at UW Bothell is on immigration’s designated STEM Degree eligibility list. This means that after you complete your first year of OPT, you are eligible to apply for two more years of OPT through the STEM OPT extension!

What Kinds of Jobs Can I Do in Supply Chain Management?

This area of business has a lot of opportunities, whether you are interested to work for a small or even global company.  The WOIS has some great information about the types of jobs and what your daily work would look like an employee in the Supply Chain Management field. For example, this is a list of what kinds of daily tasks you could expect to do in the field:

• Create and use supply chains that help businesses with changing market conditions, environmental impacts, or cost reduction.
• Manage supply chain sales, marketing, costs, production, routes, and quality.
• Manage purchasing, material needs, inventory control, warehousing, or receiving.
• Help manage product changes or new product launches. Make sure product supply meets demand for the product.
• Pick suppliers based on factors such as performance and environmental impact.
• Use new technology to analyze inventory. Use data to check inventory use, reduce waste, or improve customer service.
• Ensure access to materials and products. Talk with supply chain planners to predict demand, create supply plans, or recycle waste.
• Make rules for testing supply chain factors such as product cost and impact on the environment.
• Create and use plans for tracking and storing materials or products that produce less pollution.
• Test products to check the environmental impact of every part of their creation, use, and disposal.
• Create programs to reduce waste connected with product disposal such as computers.

Also, here is an awesome chart to get an idea of the entry level to experienced position you could do in a career in this field:  

 Chart is from: http://scma.com/ab/images/provinces/ab/Careers/SCMA-AB-sample-titles.pdf

 

How Can I Enroll in the School of Business’s Supply Chain Management Concentration?

The first step is to make an appointment with your School of Business Academic Advisor, Beth or Jerry. They can go through the concentration admission requirements, program completion requirements and how to get you started in the course enrollment.

To get a sneak peek at the types of courses you will get to take in this concentration, check out the course list here.

Supply Chain Management Resources:

• What is Supply Chain Management? This is a great intro video from ASU that breaks down what SCM looks like within a business.
• Salary for Supply Chain Management Jobs : Get a glimpse into the salary ranges and U.S. companies that hire supply chain management positions.

• APICS: Supply Chain Management Association: They have special offers to help students in the field find mentors, attend APIC conferences, job hunting, scholarships, and competition opportunities.

• Supply Chain Management in Washington:
  • How Does Amazon PRIME Deliver Under 2 Hours?: Supply chain management in action: cool video that helps us see how Amazon makes this work! An additional article about Amazon GO discusses how it is changing supply chain management in it’s work.

Geek Wire interviews about Amazon Prime Now Service

• TEDx, Supply Chain Management in Public Health: An interesting discussion from TEDxTacoma about getting medicines and medical help to those in need around the world.

STEM OPT Resources:

• UW Bothell Degrees Eligible for STEM OPT
• Study in the States – Official STEM OPT Information
• STEM OPT Application Packet
• Contact your primary International Student Advisor at the Center for International Education for more information.