I am on an F1 visa in the US. When I first came to the US, I was excited to become part of this country and stay here and go the H1B route. As I learned more and more about this program over the years being here, I got more and more disappointed even to the point that I just gave up on H1B altogether and will be going back after I am done studying.
It really is just not worth my time investment and trouble, if I have a great alternative at home. Sure, this might be different from people who are from poor countries, but in my case I weighted the pros and cons between H1B and going back, and my home country "won."
>Undergo TOEFL and GRE and apply to various universities
Which is an expensive scam, imho.
>Adapt to a new culture, study hard while working part time
Working part time might not be worth it for certain majors. In my case, I'd have to take 1 less class each semester to have more time to work. However, at the lousy wage it would end up being more expensive in the end than not working.
>Finding a job (While its definitely easy for a CS graduate its not the same for other majors) but yet, cannot be eligible to many companies that don't want to sponsor visa in long term, not eligible for small startups with no e-verify.
My experience has been that it is not easy to find a job, even as a CS graduate if you are not an American. Could be different if I went to Stanfrod or MIT, but with a regular school, I feel like being an American (i.e. not requiring sponsorship) is a huge advantage. I think that at this entry level companies rather choose Americans than people who would need sponsorship. Maybe this would be different if it wasn't a lottery
> Make sure you do all the paper work with OPT, be updated on travel requirements and other stuff
They even recently increased the fees of applying for OPT to $410.
So all in all, H1B is just too much uncertainty for a way too long time for me to be worth it.