Our North American team has been hard at work this past month, travelling to different cities and building new connections to grow GSP’s network further. Here’s a quick update on what they’ve been up to recently. 

 NAFSA 2022  

Catherine Wilson, Pat Colabucci and and Kevin Morgan attended the NAFSA Regional Conferences in Sacramento, Albany, Charlotte, and Corpus Christi. NAFSA is the world’s biggest not-for-profit association dedicated to international education and exchange of which GSP is a proud and engaged NAFSA member. 

At these events, our North American team network with many people in the industry, including several institutions that are looking to grow their international student numbers. The team also met many students and young professionals who are interested to learn more about what the industry has to offer.  

To promote GSP at the events, the team handed out Tim Tams, a tasty milk chocolate-covered biscuit famous in Australia, where GSP is based. The team challenged fellow attendees to participate in the Tim Tam Slam—the signature Australian way of eating the biscuit: bite off opposite corners of the biscuit, use it as a straw to slurp up a hot beverage like coffee, hot chocolate or tea and, finally, pop the whole treat into your mouth in one go. It has been fun engaging with the conference participants, and at the same time, it also allowed us to show them another side of Australians we are quite fond of.  

After a big month connecting with the fantastic industry of recruiters and education providers around the US, the team looks forward to attending the annual AIRC event in Los Angeles next month. Meet Pat, Catherine, and Kevin at booth 72 and have a go at the Tim Tam Slam! 

Meeting with Westcliff University (WU) 

Pat Colabucci, GSP’s Director for North America, met with Westcliff University (WU) in Irvine, California last month.  The GSP–WU partnership is off to an excellent start as the university welcomes 14 students from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and the Philippines. WU has expressed appreciation for the team’s support in effectively advising the students before they arrived in the U.S. The WU admission staff were also very pleased to see students getting their F1 visas and bringing diversity to the classrooms. 

Located in one of the safest and most diverse cities in the U.S., WU is a private, award-winning university that offers plenty of exciting opportunities for scholarships, internships, and career services. The career and placement services for Curricular Practical Training (CPT) and Optional Practical Training (OPT), in particular, have long been one of the greatest of WU’s attractions for students. In 2021, WU was also recognised by Best Value Schools as having one of the top graduate marketing programs. 

WU has placed 85% of its graduates in jobs in 2021, and its 10:1 student-to-professor ratio ensures that every student gets the attention and support they need to complete their programs. With six start dates per year, various scholarship opportunities for international students, and several MBA STEM programs allowing a 3-year OPT, WU is poised for plenty of growth as a partner of GSP. 

The university has also just announced that it has been approved by SEVP to now issue I-20s for the Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (BSCS), Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (BSIT), and Doctor in Education (EdD) programs! This exciting news brings more opportunities to students hoping to become a Westcliff student.