CPT Procedure for CS Undergraduate Majors that are International Students and Not Doing Co-op 

This procedure pertains to international students --- and must be completed anew for each semester and each employer, even if interning with a company one has interned with before --- who are:

  1. officially affiliated with the CS major before the internship, and
  2. are not doing the internship through the Cornell Engineering Co-op program, and
  3. will either: 
    1. be a Cornell undergraduate in the semester after the internship, or
    2. be a Cornell undergraduate finishing their undergrad degree in semester X, and the internship dates fall strictly between the beginning of semester X and the last day of exams for semester X.  That is, the student can submit the CS 4997 work to be graded during semester X.

If the above three conditions 1, 2, and 3 do not jointly describe your situation, then here is what to do instead.

  • Students who are not officially CS majors at the time they wish to apply for CPT should contact International Services instead of following the procedures below.
  • CPT applications as part of the Engineering Co-op program need to be routed to the Engineering Co-op office.
  • CS majors who will be M.Eng students in the semester after the internship, and to whom item 3(b) above does not apply, should contact meng@cs.cornell.edu instead of following the procedures below. You'll want CS 5998, not CS 4997.

  • Students looking for OPT should contact the CS undergraduate advising officers, ugrad@cs.cornell.edu .

 

Before the internship

  1. First, visit https://international.globallearning.cornell.edu/employment-and-taxes/f-1-cpt and fill out the required form.
    Where the form asks for "Academic Advisor of Department Representative",
    1. Choose "Other or this CPT is not for a course" for "Please select the course in which you are earning credit by performing this CPT."
    2. Put "Computer Science DUS" for "Department Approver Name"
    3. Put "ugrad-faculty-director@cs.cornell.edu" for "Department Approver Email"   
  2. Make a pdf copy of the entire filled-out form that you submit to Global Learning/International Services.
  3. Log in to your Cornell google workspace account, using your NetID login credentials,  and upload your saved pdf copy to https://forms.gle/8yT6enyPrSovjbvV9, filling out all the information required on that Google form.
  4. After we receive electronic notice from International Services, and then manually verify that you are affiliated with the CS major and determine your expected graduation date, then we will give electronic approval to International Services.  We believe that when the CS department approves, the request in your CPT Portal will say "Pending Office Approval", but no email notification is sent.

After the internship

  1. Assuming you have followed the procedures above, you will be issued a PIN that allows you to enroll in CS 4997 (for .25 credit, S/U) by the end of the first full week of classes for the relevant semester. (We can no longer auto-add students to the class.) If you do not receive a PIN by the end of the first full week of classes (the first week that has five days of instruction in it),  please file a helpdesk ticket at the Bowers CIS Courses Help system.
     
  2. To obtain credit for CS 4997, you will need to write a short essay (maximum of one single-spaced page) that describes your work experience and reflects on its connections to the educational objectives of the CS major. The essay should describe the project(s) that you worked on, comment on your level of preparedness for the internship, and briefly mention some of the new things that you learned.

    You'll submit that essay on the course management system (CMS) for CS 4997; instructions will be sent a bit after the end of the add-drop period. If you haven't received instructions, contact ugrad-faculty-director@cs.cornell.edu.

For additional information on the CPT work authorization process, see the International Services office web page, or contact the CS undergrad office at ugrad@cs.cornell.edu