How I Got Hired: Director, Office of International Student Affairs, Wesleyan University

My name is Morgan Keller and I graduated from the Middlebury Institute in 2016 with an MA in International Education Management. My language of study was Japanese. Prior to coming to Monterey, I earned my BA in International Affairs and Communications at Lewis & Clark College. I am also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) and taught in the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. Now I work at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, as the director of the Office of International Student Affairs (OISA). 

As OISA director, I serve as Wesleyan’s principal designated school official (PDSO) and an alternate responsible officer (ARO), overseeing our institution’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) compliance and international student advising and documentation services. I lead our OISA team in providing holistic support for Wesleyan’s international student community from prearrival through up to three years after graduation. In addition to managing SEVIS compliance and advising services, my office administers cocurricular and extracurricular programs that encompass international student transition and persistence support, leadership development, peer mentorship, intercultural learning, and community building. I am also a leader and active participant in the Global Wes Collaborative (GWC), a group of staff, faculty, student, and alumni members who work together to advance Wesleyan’s comprehensive internationalization themes, goals, and activities.

I learned about the job opening at Wesleyan while perusing the HigherEdJobs website when I was working at University of Wisconsin–Madison International Student Services (ISS) as assistant director of student transitions and cocurricular education. At the time, I was quite content in my position at UW–Madison, but I saw the opportunity at Wesleyan and felt inspired to apply because I wanted to work with a smaller community of international students and provide more individualized and holistic support.

Professor Katherine Punteney’s International Student & Scholar Services (ISSS) elective course with its practitioner approach was a wonderful introduction to the field for me during my studies at the Institute. It really sparked my interest in ISSS as a potential career path within international education! For my practicum experience, I was very fortunate to work under a brilliant, two-time MIIS alumna, Dr. Keri Toma MATFL ’03, MAIEM ’14, at UC Santa Cruz ISSS, just up the coast from Monterey. My practicum under Dr. Toma’s mentorship was immensely inspiring and formative, providing me with invaluable opportunities to gain on-the-ground experience in designing and implementing programming and orientation content for international students and scholars. I even had opportunities to support spouses and family members of international students and scholars through the Found in Conversation English class I started—work I loved that strongly aligned with my TESOL background from having lived and taught in Kyushu, Japan (Kagoshima Prefecture), for eight years prior to my graduate studies at MIIS! 

Start Early on Applying for Jobs

My best advice for current students is to start applying for jobs early, even before you begin your practicum or reach the final semester of your graduate program. Finding your first position out of graduate school is an exciting process that can potentially be quite iterative and time consuming. Cast as wide a net as you can when applying for roles, actively network with people in your field of interest, and tenaciously embrace the humbling, imperfectible arts of résumé writing, cover letter composing, and job interviewing. Inevitably, at some point in your career, likely more than once and perhaps even while you’re still a student at MIIS, there will be an opportunity that you really want that does not come to fruition (speaking from personal experience here). Once that sting of being passed by subdues, take time to constructively reflect on what you learned from the experience and then, in the sage words of my favorite TV hero, Ted Lasso, “be a goldfish” (but not a totally forgetful one) and move onward to new opportunities, keeping that garnered pearl of self-wisdom tucked away in your psyche until it’s time to dazzle in your next final interview!