In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Sonali Majumdar, the assistant dean for professional development in the graduate school at Princeton University. Sonali is the author of the recently published book Thriving as an International Scientist: Professional Development for Global STEM Citizens. Sonali and Emily discuss the various financial challenges that international graduate students, postdocs, and researchers face when coming to the US, including the start-up expenses and relative financial dependence on their advisor’s grants. They also touch on the learning curve that international scientists experience in the areas of immigration, taxes, and investing.

Links mentioned in the Episode

Financially Thriving as an International Scientist in the US

Teaser

Sonali (00:00): And what happens as a result of that is we sort of start, um, falling prey, um, to what could be called deficit thinking or scarcity mindset, which is focusing more on the problem and planning our life around the problem and not around possibilities. And so that, that’s a problem, not just for the individual, but also for science in general.

Introduction

Emily (00:35): Welcome to the Personal Finance for PhDs Podcast: A Higher Education in Personal Finance. This podcast is for PhDs and PhDs-to-be who want to explore the hidden curriculum of finances to learn the best practices for money management, career advancement, and advocacy for yourself and others. I’m your host, Dr. Emily Roberts, a financial educator specializing in early-career PhDs and founder of Personal Finance for PhDs.

Emily (01:05): This is Season 22, Episode 7, and today my guest is Dr. Sonali Majumdar, the assistant dean for professional development in the graduate school at Princeton University. Sonali is the author of the recently published book Thriving as an International Scientist: Professional Development for Global STEM Citizens. Sonali and I discuss the various financial challenges that international graduate students, postdocs, and researchers face when coming to the US, including the start-up expenses and relative financial dependence on their advisor’s grants. We also touch on the learning curve that international scientists experience in the areas of immigration, taxes, and investing.

Emily (01:44): If you want to bring one of my live tax workshops to your university next tax season, get in touch with me ASAP! Between now and the end of the year, I’m populating my calendar, especially early February, with in person and remote speaking engagements. My workshops are typically hosted by graduate schools, postdoc offices, and graduate student associations, and sometimes individual departments. Whether you are in a position to make those arrangements or simply want to recommend me, you can get the ball rolling by emailing me at [email protected]. My tax workshops, both live and pre-recorded, are my most popular offering each year because taxes are such a widespread pain point for graduate students, postdocs, and postbacs. You can find the show notes for this episode at PFforPhDs.com/s22e7/. Without further ado, here’s my interview with Dr. Sonali Majumdar.

Will You Please Introduce Yourself Further?

Emily (02:58): I have a really special podcast interview for you today. Dr. Sonali Majumdar is with me. She is the assistant Dean for Professional Development at Princeton University and the author of the newly released book, thriving as an International Scientist Professional Development for Global STEM Citizens. We are recording this interview just a couple days after the book launch date in late October, and so we’ll get this interview right out so that all of you can enjoy the book if you think that it applies to you. Um, so Sonali and I have, uh, been in, you know, collaboration and correspondence for several years now. Um, she hired me a few years ago as a speaker back at UVA and we see one another at conferences on and off. And so it’s just a great opportunity for me to speak with her in this format on the podcast and get to introduce you all to her. So, uh, Sonali, would you please introduce yourself a little bit further to the audience?

Sonali (03:47): First of all, it’s really nice to talk to you again, Emily. We just saw each other last weekend, uh, but it’s always a pleasure to get to collaborate with you. I really appreciate the topic that you’ve been working on for PhDs on financial literacy. Um, okay, so a little bit about me. Um, my name is Sonali Majumdar, like you said. I am born in India. Um, I identify as an international scientist, um, and in some ways this is my third career path. So I started after my undergrad and master’s in microbiology and biotechnology in India. My first job and career path was in healthcare entrepreneurship. I, with a team of physicians and clinical embryologists, started an IVF clinic in a hospital in Calcutta, India, and did that for about three odd years. Um, and that’s when I got excited about doing PhD. Someone told me in the middle that you actually get paid, um, and, you know, to do research. And I thought, wow, that’s great. And as has been the theme of my career so far, um, I get bored every few years. I when I, there are moments in my life when I feel like I’m using my hands more than my head, and that’s sort of been the indicator of a change in my career path. And that’s how I kinda moved into the US in 2007 for PhD in, uh, earned in biology at University of Georgia, um, and spent the next decade as a PhD and a postdoc, uh, scientist.

Sonali (05:11): I did my postdoc in Sloan Kettering studying RNA protein complexes, um, first in CRISPR biology or like, you know, bacterial immunity systems. And the second in understanding the role of RNAs in brain development and different forms of cancer. Um, but it was, again, when I was a postdoc that I got, um, interested and in a different problem, which was how were we really training our scientists? We were all kind of stumbling into different career paths. That was also around the time that NIH had really started looking at data for PhDs and postdocs in the sciences. Um, and we realized that vast majority of postdocs don’t go into academic fields, but we weren’t getting intentionally trained, uh, for the dynamic careers that we could be, you know, beneficial and adding value to society. And, and so that’s where I started doing a lot of volunteering work, um, in New York City, um, to, uh, for equitable access for professional development for postdocs primarily, and got involved in National Postdoc Association, uh, did a leadership program in Genetic Society of America, and did a lot of work with, um, the, um, Sloan Kettering’s Postdoc Association, as well as, um, started, I was on the founding board for this organization called New York City Postdoc Coalition. So doing all of that with working on professional development and science communication kind of work, I thought, again, I was being more creative outside the bench then on it. And so that was my, uh, you know, thought of moving my career. But I was on visas, and this was around 2018. It was a very different time in terms of, uh, you know, similar to now the, uh, immigration climate was tense, um, and changing fields was hard and there wasn’t a lot of precedence for immigrants to do that, but I made it work, and we can kind of talk about that in a bit. But over the last seven or so years, I’ve, uh, been building professional development program for PhDs and postdocs. Um, like, uh, you said I was at University of Virginia there before for about four years, building a new program called PhD Plus. That’s where we got the opportunity to collaborate. And since 2022, I’ve joined the graduate school of Princeton University building out, um, this program called Grad Futures here, um, focusing more on science engineering graduate programs.

Sonali (07:28): So, yeah, I, I’ll stop right there. Um, it’s generally been my own experiences, my friends’ experiences, many of whom are immigrants, and then like advising our graduate students and postdocs in two different universities and as well as nationally. Um, if I were to put a number, it’s possibly more than 500 or so trainees that I’ve advised in the last seven odd years, um, that I’ve seen similar themes, especially among immigrants, um, that I thread into this book called Thriving as an International Scientist. Um, and then also it’s kind of came through someone in our professional community who said that there was a need for this book, someone I’ve looked up to who started talking a lot about, um, support for international scientists, um, when I was a postdoc myself. And so this was a good time to kind of like write about some of the things I’ve learned, um, and also ground the challenges of international scientists, um, and thread best practices of professional development in a more customized manner, um, and also make the stories of international scientists visible. Um, we are way more than our immigration challenges or, um, minority, um, you know, um, myths that we have in terms of getting the job done.

Dr. Majumdar’s Book: Thriving as an International Scientist

Emily (08:46): Beautiful. Thank you so much for that introduction and the backstory about how you got to this point. Um, and thank you for, you know, telling us a little bit even about the book already. I actually had a new appreciation for the position that international scientists are in here in the United States, actually at the conference that we were both at this past weekend, um, which was, what can you be with a PhD hosted at NYU Langone. Um, and I went to a session on, I think it was titled like, Can You Stay or Should You Go? And I was a little bit of a fish out of water, right? Because as a, you know, native born US citizen, I did not experience any of these things, but obviously I’ve had many peers and collaborators over the years who have been, um, part of this system. And I <laugh> got, uh, just from that session, a new appreciation for all the complexity and all the strategy and all the decision making that has to go into, um, as you put it in, you know, the title of your book, like Thriving as a Scientist across borders and in different, you know, contexts.

Emily (09:43): Um, is there anything you’d like more to tell us about, like the themes of the book? And actually I’m curious, maybe we’ll start here. Um, is the book written for, um, let’s say international grad students, postdoc scholars in the us or is it a even more global context of a any country of, you know, presence?

Sonali (10:02): Um, there’s definitely, um, more specific, um, chapters for international graduate students, postdocs and in fact scientist- early career scientists or scientists at any stage. Um, the chapters on Visa, et cetera are definitely more contextual for those who are in the United States, but there are def- uh, broader chapters, um, which might be resonant for international scientists globally in any country who might face similar challenges setting up life in a new country on trying to understand the culture or communication norms, et cetera, that are pretty broadly applicable here.

Emily (10:36): Okay. Thanks for clearing that up. Um, and yeah, any other themes you’d like to share from the book before we start really talking about the financial aspects?

Sonali (10:44): So I’d like to say that, you know, when, when you ask me about the central theme, and I’ve been giving talks about this, this is becoming more and more visible to me that somehow our lives as international, whether it’s grad students, postdocs or scientists, we face a paradox. Um, on one end we sort of drive cutting edge research innovation, um, in our professional lives, um, while operating in sort of like a restrictive environment in our personal lives, mostly driven by the immigration landscape, um, and policy, so to speak. And what happens as a result of that is we sort of start, um, falling prey, um, to what could be called deficit thinking or scarcity mindset, which is focusing more on the problem and planning your life around the problem and not around possibilities. Um, and so one example of that is choosing sort of your career paths and planning your future based on visa, visa feasibility rather than your ambition and your interests. Um, and so, and that could also have a bearing on, you know, the lack of creativity one might filter into their professional life, um, after operating in this restrictive, you know, sort of environment. And there could be repercussions to one’s future in the research as well. And so that, that’s a problem not just for the individual, but also for science in general because we are not, we are trying to train like more holistic thinkers. Um, um, and that’s a barrier. And so what, uh, this book is trying to also do outside of foregrounding the unique needs of immigrant scientists, um, is really helping them push beyond, first of all, acknowledge when they might fall prey into a scarcity or deficit thinking. Um, and then push beyond that by really, um, harnessing some of the skills they’re learning in this research. Uh, whether it’s creative thinking, whether it’s curiosity, growth mindset, and giving them more actionable strategies, um, to look beyond the restrictions, to navigate their lives, to think expansively within and beyond the sort of rules made in their immediate environment.

Emily (13:00): Yeah, and, and actually just again, thinking about this session from this conference this past weekend, that was kind of what I learned from that session. I think some people in the audience did as well, like the presenter was going through different visa options and of course, maybe, you know, the H-1B is kind of prominent in people’s minds, but he was saying there’s so many different ways to like, to have a visa that allows you to work in the United States, depending on your exact situation, exactly what you were thinking you were saying, just use curiosity, look into all the options, everybody’s situation’s different. So it has to be pretty personalized. Um, but it just opened my mind quite a bit to the possibilities, um, in this space as well. And so, yeah, you’re not locked into like one single path. Um, there’s a lot of different ways that this can branch, and I admit that I did not, I was not aware of how, um, restrictive things could get in terms of your career, uh, options through the immigration process. Like how, as you were saying earlier, like pivoting a little bit or changing fields, like in some cases you’re not permitted to go too far from, you know, the original reason why you were, um, admitted.

Sonali (14:05): I think the thinking is, and one of the reasons for this is a lot of these immigration rules and policies haven’t changed in 30 odd years, right? Like there have been some improvements made in the past decade or two decades, but the thinking is if the United States is investing in your training in X area, you should work in that X area, that that’s what you are good for. But the reality of the job market and careers and such is a lot more dynamic. Um, and so it is with scientists as well, by and large, more and more, a lot of scientists are not just working in the research field that they did their PhD or postdoc, and they’re also working outside academia. They’re working outside research all altogether, like whether it’s in business of science, whether it’s in science policy and communications. Um, and that’s where, you know, it can be done. Um, there’s a, a lot of storytelling aspect to show how you are training and aspects of the, the broader skill sets you’ve learned as scientific think, uh, thinking can be applied to many different career paths. I mean, I’m an example of that, that where I could show that my PhD training is just as applicable in administration and understanding graduate education. Um, but it’s, again, folks don’t know about it as much, whether they are the international students or their employers. There needs to be a lot of education and clarity on both ends so that we can start building those narratives, um, and trying to explore the options. So that’s definitely something that we have to kind of collectively work toward.

Startup Expenses as an International Scholar

Emily (15:36): And absolutely your book furthers that cause your, um, you know, your current position furthers that cause professional development broadly in this area can pay attention to this and help, um, scientists in, in this area as well. So I’m so glad about that. Let’s talk more about money though. So, um, you know, we were kind of chatting together and we figured out a few different areas where, um, certainly we can give a little bit of guidance from the book on how, um, international scientists can thrive financially while they’re in the us. So let’s start with like when they first arrive, what do you see as like the common way that, you know, grad students or postdocs, um, or early career researchers pay for the moving costs, the startup expenses associated with moving to a new place, getting the rental set up, um, how are they typically doing that? And then how <laugh> might we suggest that they could do it in a better way?

Sonali (16:27): Um, I mean even before that, right? Like, and when I look back around my own life, I was, I was working at the time, um, and so I could actually use part of my salary, whether it was paying for GRE preparation or the taking the test, the fees required for that. The multiple universities you make applications to like that is a limitation, right? You know, I mean, especially for a lot of internationals coming from countries where the conversion rate to US dollar is pretty steep. So in, I was from India and from Indian rupees to US dollar back in the day, it was actually half of what it is right now. Um, and so 2007, I think it was around 45, um, rupees was a dollar. Now it’s over 70, right? Um, and so that limits the number of applications you can even send because, uh, you know, a lot of people take out loans even from that stage, um, um, or depend on family.

Sonali (17:21): Um, and then you have the set of costs, like you said about the flight tickets, um, coming and paying for like, you know, even reserving, um, an apartment, uh, if you’re living there you have to pay a security deposit, the first month’s rent, setting up all the utilities, um, you know, phones and other expenses before you’ve seen the first paycheck even, right? Um, and so all of these you have to kind of like have, um, figured out and hopefully you are thinking, but like a lot of people are kind of figuring it out as they go along. Um, the other thing is during visa interviews, when you are being looked at to come to the United States, they ask you for financial documents on your savings in your home country to make sure that you can actually sustain yourself, um, before your financial support assistantship, whatever is your form of finan- income comes in.

Sonali (18:17): Um, and so from the beginning there’s that, right? Like from my own life, you know, this is where, um, university international offices, even student associations were really helpful. And so the Indian Student Association at University of Georgia, actually one of the most fundamentally important things they did was recognize this housing issue. So they had like, you know, started negotiating with properties on, um, helping, you know, immigrant international students find accommodation, doing roommate matching, negotiating for rent and security deposit issues, informing, um, the students when they got in. So they would work with the international office on just collaborating on that. And since I’ve then I’ve learned a lot of international offices actually do that in terms of like sending more information to graduate students. So congratulations for coming to Princeton. You know, these are things you have to look into as you would also pay-, file your paperwork, just start looking into this is what expenses would look like.

Sonali (19:19): And then social media has clarified a lot of things like, you know, I came pre-social media time where a lot of things were not, um, clear for us, visible for us. Now there’s so many tutorial videos, other international scientists kind of talking about these things. Um, and by and large now departments and graduate schools are also recognizing this. Um, and I might be kind of talking about a lot of these elite urban institutions, but some of them do also have financial support in helping out for a setup costs, um, or just like financial funding and support to support the tuition or, you know, so, um, before they actually come in here. Um, and so there’s that. I also talked to, um, in terms of what can be done to help.

Sonali (20:07): Like, the other thing is there are a couple more things. One is you don’t have a car when you’re coming. You have to take a test to show that you can drive, maybe even take a driver trainer, training. So many internationals don’t necessarily get a car in the first year. They have to figure out the public transport option. And so I was talking to, um, a faculty, um, his name is Harmit Malik, he’s in Fred Hutch. He, I interviewed him as part of the book and we were discussing on this specific aspect of setup costs. And he suggested this idea that he’s been discussing in his institution of maybe, uh, frontloading some of the, the stipend, maybe taking part of the stipend from say, December or some other month and front loading and paying them before they come. Um, you know, that could be one idea where when they need the money, they have some, um, and the second is also seeing if there can be vouchers or, uh, discounts for Ubers, right? Like if, if someone got like a per month X amount of dollars to use toward Uber or carpooling, that could also be very helpful, uh, for those who don’t have, they’re not, who are not living close to campus and cannot use, uh, campus transit or public transit. Um, and so those, those are like some creative ways that we can go around. But unfortunately with the, uh, current budget climate and higher ed, this is not a problem that is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Um, but we definitely, these are unresolved issues that we have to think about. Um, and I mean, speaking of like the national organization, I think National Postdoc Association has done a great job. They have an onboarding guide for all postdocs with a specific section for international postdocs, and they also have like a separate resource for guide for international scientists and international postdocs. Um, and so some of these organizations are doing a lot of work in kind of clearing and, uh, expectations and making some of these things visible from the beginning.

Emily (22:12): I think it’s so important to share best practices like what you were just doing in this interview and also I’m sure in the book as well, so that we can create more systemic helps for, you know, based probably at each institution for the scholars coming into that institution. I love the ideas that you shared already. And actually I was recently, I visited, um, university of Texas Southwestern Medical Center to give a workshop there, and I was introduced to, um, someone in the international office whose job is like, I think her title is like relocation specialist, which you would think is very, I thought, oh, that’s common at the faculty level, but no, like, it’s actually accessible to postdocs and grad students as well. So like kind of an even more specialized version of what you were just talking about with, you know, uh, what the international offices are doing and what the, you know, student groups are doing to help this, you know, transfer of information and transfer of best practices to the incoming, um, people.

Navigating the Hidden Financial Curriculum of Life in the US

Sonali (23:06): I mean, some of these things have been improvements over time, right? Since I started PhD in 2007, but even during my time there were like small things that the international, which looks like small, but it was foundationally important, uh, was doing an orientation, which many uni- uh, international offices do for a weekend. But during the orientation they actually had, um, you know, the social security administration office come on campus and set up our social security accounts. Um, so we didn’t have to go somewhere to their offices not knowing where they’re at. During that week we were told, if you want to open up your social security account, you can do it here. If you want to open up your bank account, you can do it in the orientation. And so bringing them all to you, and I remember I took advantage of all of those <laugh> just so I didn’t have to figure out how to go to, which bank to go to, where to go to. Um, and yeah, we, those kind of smaller things, but um, um, they did was really helpful over the long term.

Sonali (24:09): But like even then, I mean, there’s a lot of these hidden curriculum which are like unwritten rules, which I feel like maybe this generation knows a little bit more about than we did was the idea of credit history, which took me a while to figure out, right? Like one of the first hurdles I faced was getting a phone, like getting a like cell phone. Um, and many of the providers have these requirements for having a, uh, established credit history, but how do you have that as it’s a chicken and egg problem? Same thing with cars and stuff like, but those are different, like more, um, established investments you’re making down the line. Um, and so while you couldn’t open up a credit card until you’ve been in this country for about like six or so months and you’ve established some amount of, uh, financial statements, um, and so there, there were one or two companies back in 2007 phone companies that would let you, um, and they recognized this market, the immigrant market <laugh>, um, and a lot of folks actually ended up getting those phones in the first year until they could build up their credit history and move to a different provider that where they could show that.

Sonali (25:13): And so things like this, um, those are hard things that you kind of learn through practice. Um, but this is where the community, um, senior international students, um, who had been through this experience in the recent past were really helpful in helping us figure out. And so we each had a peer mentor when we started, um, through the international office, through the Indian Student Association, who would talk about these issues and they would take us around. Um, and we also had like some, uh, local families, um, from, you know, India who would help us on, you know, grocery shopping or just taking us to a grocery store every weekend, um, before we had a car and such and such. So yeah, I mean there’s also a lot of help around from just the community. Um, but these are just even systems like, you know, to learn in a new country, those kind of take some time.

Emily (26:07): Absolutely. And just to bring it back around to the money, like I feel I started graduate school in 2008, so similar timing to you. Um, and I am getting the impression that in the, you know, decade and a half since then, um, that graduate student graduate schools have more and more recognized what I at that time was calling the problem of the long first month, which you mentioned is like, okay, or for me, for example, orientation started in mid-August, but I didn’t get my first paycheck till the end of September, right? The long six weeks of the long first month before you get paid, I feel like there’s been more and more action on getting paychecks sooner to graduate students. Um, but even better

Sonali (26:45): Biweekly, the biweekly thing is amazing.

Emily (26:47): Yes. Or more frequent pay. Yes, exactly. Um, but even better is getting a bonus upfront to help pay for these startup expenses or like you said, less ideal but also helpful an advance on, you know, a, a later paycheck just to have access to that bulk amount of money that you need right up front. But this is also something that people can ask. Like you said, it’s a difficult climate for funding right now, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, you know, as you’re looking at your offer letter, whether it’s for a grad student postdoc position, something later, if it doesn’t include information about a startup bonus or a moving stipend or anything similar, just ask. It absolutely does not hurt to ask. And you may actually get some money out of it,

Sonali (27:25): And especially as a postdoc, you probably will <laugh>. Um, ’cause postdocs are weird, right? Like in terms of some of them are actually employees and staff. And so those are part of staff benefits. So if you don’t ask, you won’t get. I I definitely got, um, these benefits as a postdoc moving into New York City. Um, and so yeah, that’s, as a postdoc you should be asking about all of these things

Emily (27:48): For sure.

Commercial

Emily (27:50): Emily here for a brief interlude! I’m hard at work behind the scenes updating my suite of tax return preparation workshops for tax year 2025. These educational workshops explain how to identify, calculate, and report your higher education-related income and expenses on your federal tax return. For the 2025 tax season starting in January 2026, I’m offering live and pre-recorded workshops for US citizen/resident graduate students, postdocs, and postbacs and non-resident graduate students and postdocs. Would you please reach out to your graduate school, graduate student government, postdoc office, international house, fellowship coordinator, etc. to request that they host one or more of these workshops for you and your peers? I’d love to receive a warm introduction to a potential sponsor this fall so we can hit the ground running in January serving those early bird filers. You can find more information about hosting these workshops at P F f o r P h D s dot com slash tax dash workshops. Please pass that page on to the potential sponsor. Now back to our interview.

Learning US Systems: A Time-Consuming Endeavor

Emily (29:08): And you just mentioned also that it takes some time to figure out the new system that you’ve just moved into, the financial and legal and otherwise system. So let’s talk a little bit more about that. Like how are international scientists affected by this, you know, learning curve that they have to be on when they move to a, a new country in terms of the financial system?

Sonali (29:29): Yeah, and like I said, it’s uh, helpful when you have mentors and folks you can talk to. Um, but even like with that, some of these systems are so convoluted, um, you know, I am thinking primarily about the healthcare insurance and, you know, the healthcare system in the United States. I still don’t have a complete grasp over it and I’ve been here for 17 years. Um, and so, you know, I mean, uh, the other part of it is the number of options, right? Like I don’t even, sometimes it’s easier to say, oh, as a student you only have that option. I’m like, okay, <laugh>, I guess I’m just gonna enroll in that. But when you have multiple different options, you’re constantly trying to figure out which one’s good or not. But now with like, there’s a lot of online calculators, whether it’s with your benefits package or with your, and even with within the, you know, the package that you’re getting through your university, they have this virtual assistance that can help you kind of figure out, given your circumstances, given your family circumstances, which package might be a better situation. Back in our time there were human beings that you had to like, take appointments from and go get some of these ideas.

Sonali (30:32): So the benefits healthcare, um, all of that like takes time and it’s, the rules are becomes a little different by visa type, right? Like, so, and this is where things get complicated on a student visa, you have x amount of options as a J-1 scholar, you might have a completely different portfolio of options for your health insurance, for your be-, you know, benefits, if any. Um, and so those are things like, and the other thing is the time, right? Like not time to learn, but like the time to invest in learning, um, because you are also, you know, busy doing research or setting up credibility, um, in your lab.

Sonali (31:10): Um, and that’s the other thing that I talk about in the book. It’s like there are chapters for faculty advisors, for administrators where I discuss at, ’cause I know through my own experiences, through friends and talking to a lot of people that many have faculty who just think, you know, taking care of immigration status, et cetera. People can do all their own time in the evenings, weekends. But no, that like takes a lot of time. Like you need to give them grace to actually take care of the amount of paperwork there is to maintain your immigration status. Um, they could be spending some of that in their weekday, but like many of them don’t feel like they can. And so they basically spend their weekends. And so that’s the other part of the work-life balance on when you have all of these systemic things that you have to maintain in your life. Um, there’s the financial burden of it, but there’s also the time burden of it because you may or may not feel like that you have the flexibility to spend your weekday or any portions of your weekday taking care of that.

The Financial Costs of Maintaining Your Immigration Status

Sonali (32:12): Um, and speaking of the financial burden, I wanna make another point on immigration. Um, so although your university or employer would petition on your behalf, whether it’s for a student visa or a postdoc scholar, scholar visa or work visa, every time you that gives you the permit, you get the approval on the petition to with the permission to work a study. And that has is a document type, but to actually get the stamp on the visa on your passport, you have to either go to an embassy or a consulate in your country and there’s a separate set of fees for that. And, and they may give it to you for the entire time that your permit is on for like, whether it’s four years or five years, or they may only give it to you for two odd years and then you had to renew it. And so even as a student visa, I had to renew my student visa a few times. You have to incur whatever, a hundred dollars, $200, $500, that is the visa fees to get that stamping in the consulate. And so even maintaining your immigration status, there is a recurring cost beyond the employer’s, you know, petition cost that they’ve paid for your application. And so there’s that too that you have to know, um, and have money set up for, um, as something that for discretionary that you might have to spend every once in a while and then flight if you wanna go home, those are expensive. Um, um, the farther you live, um, it’s not just time, it’s how much money you can spend to go out. And so some internationals don’t even go home every year to save that money. And so there’s different aspects of our life. It’s not just sort of like the new systems that a lot of it has these other financial sort of costs to it.

Emily (33:59): Yeah, I definitely remember my lab mates in graduate school having once or once every two years, some of them at least needing to go home for these immigration, you know, purposes. And as you said, the flights are very expensive, time cost, monetary cost. I also recall, and I’ve gotten this question from grad students and postdocs over the years, that there’s, I would say a four to five figure cost to the process of getting your green card right, to moving to that stage of the immigration process. And so that’s something that people start saving up for, um, well in advance of when the, you know, the date and the timing actually comes because it’s a very significant cost on that kind of salary.

Sonali (34:36): Yeah. So there are few tracks on the permanent residency, primarily called EB1A or the national interest waiver, which is under EB-2, where you can self-petition. Um, and in that scenario you have to pay both for the application or petition cost, which is a few thousand dollars, and the lawyer fees, which can be substantial. Um, and uh, and if you wanted the decision within 15 days, you can expedite it for an additional cost on top of that. And on a very sort of, if I were to put a number on it, and I had looked into this too, <laugh>, I mean I, I was stubborn where I at some point decided if this country needed me, I would not spend my own money on it <laugh>. So I’ve only gone through employer, that’s how stingy I am. I, I only, I have only gone through employer sponsorship and they’ve mostly paid my way through, uh, keeping my careers here.

Sonali (35:28): Um, but I looked into actually applying on my own and how um, how much any of these like lawyers et cetera costs. Like, so I would have at some point saved close to 10,000 odd dollars for just like the lawyer petition and the expedited fee. It comes down to something like that, uh, for one petition. And then some lawyers have schemes on if it’s, they will guarantee it if they like your case enough and if they’ll give you 50% of the money back if you don’t, your petition isn’t moved for like approved. Um, and so some of those law firms have these, but in today’s climate, I don’t even know what they’re doing because the rules are changing every day. And now with this like new proposal of adding a hundred thousand dollars for the new H1B visa petitions, which may not like most likely don’t apply to our student visa or the J-1 scholar visa category because that’s a transferring from one visa to another. But for anyone who is abroad and starting off as a faculty or any other role which would require a new H1B petition, employers have to incur that additional cost on top, which would make them even less, uh, inclined to recruit someone who is outside the us. And so yeah, there’s, um, it’s becoming harder in the immigration landscape in terms of financially how much money there is, um, involved in this.

Emily (36:51): Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up because I also got clarity during the session that that new H1B fee, which was all, you know, all the news was more for people coming from outside the US if you’re already here, just to reassure audience members, if you’re already here for grad school or your postdoc and you’d be doing a change of visa type, the new fee does not apply in that scenario. Um, but I’m thinking of some other systems that can cost time and money to, you know, figure out which are the tax system and the investing system in the us. Do you wanna make any comments about either one of those?

Understanding U.S. Taxes as an International Student

Sonali (37:22): Yeah, I’ve mostly used the automated, um, taxed, uh, sort of calculator to figure out. And that’s also where there are differences between how much you’re taxed when you are on what’s called a non-immigrant alien or non-resident alien category, which is typically most visas. Um, once you’ve lived about five years in the country on any visas you are identified or as an resident for tax purposes, although you are not a permanent resident. And so at some point, I think by the end of my PhD, I was a resident my tax purposes, and that’s when in the next year’s filing I saw a difference <laugh> in how much like my returns were. I was like, oh. So I was actually paying more as, um, as a so-called non-resident alien in the category that I was at. Then there’s other differentiation about, there’s some countries that have agreements, trade agreements and other tax treaties, um, where you might get some deductions, uh, based on if you’re coming from that country, which some other countries don’t have. And so it’s very disparate in terms of how much your tax is withheld in your monthly stipend. And then the other issue is with the, um, whether you’re on assistantship versus fellowship on how you actually pay the taxes. Um, I wish I could give more like details about that, but I’m probably not the best person I’m to talk about it, but it’s quarterly versus annually is at least what I know

Emily (38:57): For residents for tax purposes, don’t worry. I talk about that plenty in other episodes. We don’t need to cover it here.

Sonali (39:03): And so yeah, there’s definitely that, uh, bit of you can see, um, how your tax filing and, um, the returns change, um, based on, you know, your visa status or your type of visa, uh, whether you are, and then there’s like compounding factors, like I’ve been single the entire time in the United States, so you know, I, I feel like I get tax taxed a lot more, um, than folks who might be with families. Um, and then you also have the local city, and that’s the other thing that I learned around the time that the federal taxes and state taxes are not the only taxes that in places like New York City <laugh> in Manhattan district, your local tax is pretty exorbitant as well. Um, and so when I started looking at how much of my monthly stipend was being withheld, I was like, wow, like this is not just your, um, health insurance or other benefits. These are sort of like state and city taxes that are also getting withheld. So my advice would be to like pay attention to those line items, um, and at least if you are gonna, if you have the ability to make any sort of enrollment changes in your benefits in the next year, doing it accordingly based on how much is being withheld from your monthly salary or stipend.

Emily (40:15): And in addition, as kind of you mentioned earlier when you were getting up to like a, a status change, like when you go from non-resident to resident for tax purposes, as you said, depending on what was going on before your taxes could go down, they could go up, they could stay similar. All different kinds of things are possible, uh, depending on what country of residence you had and what your type of income was as you mentioned fellowship versus, um, you know, W2 type employment. So really good to pay attention to that stuff. Um, something that I get questions about a lot, I’m sure you do as well. Uh, basically the question is, okay, I am an international scientist. I’m living in the US right now. I don’t know what the long-term future is. Should I start investing while I’m here in the US? And of course I have a way that I answer that, but I’m curious how you would address that or what you would get people to think about for that question.

Investing While in the US as an International Student or Postdoc

Sonali (41:02): I mean, and this, this is hard, right? Like, ’cause you may not get benefits on a, um, on a student visa or a J-1 scholar visa. Um, but I still think that you should be at least whether it’s your Roth IRA, um, that’s post tax, right? Um, that you should be putting in some money into a Roth, um, and you know, it’s building wealth. It’s just not just savings. And so as it is, there is um, um, what do we call it? The, the salary tax on how long you are training as a PhD and postdoc, the amount of years it takes for you to catch up with the market, uh, wages for someone with a lower educational level or at the same educational level. So you, they have a premium, a salary premium, um, you’re taking a hit in the number of years you are training.

Sonali (41:52): And so the only way to even equalize or think about this is how I think about is like only way for you to kind of catch up is if you are building wealth savings and, uh, rather than having your savings sitting around in the, um, in the bank, which you can, through a higher yield savings account, at least it’s adding some more to it. I would say at least putting some percent of that in the, into a Roth IRA every year. Um, my dad taught me this pretty early on, um, emergency funding on how much you should have in your bank account and that, I know there’s like metrics on what percent of your salary should have as sort of like just disposable sort of, uh, discretionary funding for yourself. But my father was like, just look at, make sure you always have in your bank account a return flight round, round way flight from India to the US as your emergency.

Sonali (42:49): Um, because you might have to come at any point, whether it’s for family emergency, whether it’s for other situation. So just think existential first what is. So the the way that I started thinking about is like, what is the worst case scenario where I might have to leave or do something? How much money will I need, whether it’s to wrap up my life and move somewhere else and do something, do I have that amount sitting around in a bank account that I can just, you know, uh, leverage right away? And then the additional amount of money that I’ve saved over time can go into building wealth through investments. Um, it gets better. You get more financial advice once you are like an employee and you have benefits packages and stuff, but it’s harder to do as a student because, and cost of living is so high, you know, um, you know, renting is so high.

Sonali (43:37): Um, and so I think in some ways in the beginning to like coming into the United States, I had, I think most way through my PhD I shared my apartment with people I never lived alone. And that was sort of like an, um, cost effective way in terms of like back then the rents weren’t as high. Um, but that’s something you could think about. Like, you know, folks could think about on how do you save money, whether it is more on, you know, the rent or other lifestyle choices you’re making and putting that money, parts of that money into investment. Um, and some of it is post tax, so you should be able to take it out when, when you want to.

Emily (44:17): Yeah. I I answer the question very similarly. Just go ahead, get started. As, as you said, it’s, it’s one of the only ways to kind of compensate for those low salary years to not come out so far behind. Um, you, you know, your similar peers

Sonali (44:30): And I’ve, I’ve learned from mistakes myself, right? Like, ’cause I wish I had asked the question, what was the alternative? The alternative’s not doing it and you’re not making building wealth at in those years. And so I’m already kind of like, you know, behind on that, those, some of those, uh, student years. Yeah.

Emily (44:46): Yeah. Well, I guess another alternative that sometimes people think about is investing in their home country instead of investing through the US financial system. And I’ve done a pair of interviews actually with a previous guest named Hui-chin Chen that I would recommend to anyone listening who’s in this situation where we talk about, um, you know, investing as a non-resident, let’s say, um, in the, in the US and why she encourages people to do it through the US systems. Um, ’cause they’re relatively more open, um, transparent, lower cost than many other countries. Not all, but compared to many other countries.

Funding Challenges for International Scholars

Emily (45:18): The other thing that you brought up that I thought was a really, really good thing to talk about during this interview was the fact that there’s, um, funding available in the US that is restricted only for US citizens, or let’s say permanent residents. And so relatively, if you’re an international scientist in the US you have access to perhaps fewer funding options. And so what are the implications of that? Um, well I don’t wanna call it scarcity mindset ’cause you mentioned that earlier, but like that reality of like the fund

Sonali (45:46): Yeah. So there’s actually data around that. So, um, NSF has this survey called the Survey of Foreign Doctorates where they, um, assess the landscape of those who’ve just got their PhDs, um, science engineering as well as humanities, all programs, uh, across US universities. And one of the questions they have in that survey is, what was the source of your doctoral stipend or income, um, in, in the, during your PhD and the numbers, I actually have it in front of me. It’s uh, uh, approximately 50. In 2022s results, 52% of visa holders who were PhD students, uh, were on, uh, faculty directed research assistantships or institutional teaching assistantships compared to 34% of their domestic PhD, um, counterparts. There’s multiple sort of implications of this. The most obvious one is the, if you apply for an independent PhD fellowship, the earlier and the more frequently you do, you can show that you have fundability of your ideas, you can pursue your own ideas and you are more competitive on the faculty job market, right? So that’s sort of the most, uh, obvious one.

Sonali (46:58): Um, the sort of like the indirect implications are when you’re tied to a faculty directed research, you’re also tied to how their career is moving. You are more likely to take the stress that they are bearing on like kind of their grant cycle or grant cycle. Um, you are also reliant on them, um, on their freedom, uh, or their flexibility on you pursuing a independent idea. Many students I talk to ha- are scared that their faculty perceived or real will not be supportive, supportive of them investing time in professional development outside their labs in doing an internship or a CPT, um, all of those decisions that you have to make are tied to faculties uh, whims or, you know, mindset about any of those. And so one way to kind of course correct that is having those conversations early on, knowing that you are kind of going to have more of an employee status with them in seeing how they feel about most of these and having clear expectations before you start working for someone in their lab.

Sonali (48:04): Um, and that the sort of least obvious one, which I’ve talked to a few people in the book who talk about it, especially as a postdoc, is the, um, sort of like the attrition and layoff situation. So if fa- faculty loses a grant, um, they might have to lay off people and if your complete income is dependent on them getting a grant, you are more likely to have your contract terminated mid cycle, um, because they lost money. Like they don’t have money to support you. And given the kind of climate that we are in with, um, shrinking research funding, um, and also the domestic candidates who are applying for these federal fellowships, those are shrinking. They’re gonna also compete for the non-federal, smaller, you know, fellowships that were open to internationals. So there’s higher competition in the smaller amount of fellowships that are, uh, available.

Sonali (48:57): And then there’s like the market changes and sort of like the flux and the mass layoffs that are happening both on the private sector as well as in the academic sector, um, that makes it like, you know, the internationals are very vulnerable to it. Um, the other sort of constraints with that is if you’re on a visa, you have a time cycle time clock typically called like grace period, which is typically 60 day on a work visa. Um, when you have to find another employment within those two months if you wanna maintain your immigration status. If not, you have to wrap up your life and leave. Um, and so those are like kind of a lot of different constraints that make internationals pretty vulnerable to the labor market changing as rapidly and you know, as it is now and with the impacts of AI and all of the other reasons that people have been talking about, I think our international colleagues and students are in a very highly vulnerable place.

Emily (49:54): And that’s why, I mean, I know that you finished writing this book over a year ago and you did not have a crystal ball as to what the situation would be looking like upon publication, but it’s a good time for this kind of resource to be out, um, for this kind of community.

Sonali (50:07): Yeah, and some of these challenges have been persisting for many, many years. It has nothing to do with, it’s come to a head now, it’s been amplified now with the current changes, but we had to collectively like have conversations and make progress and improvements in some of these systems and some of the choices our advisors and employers are making, and at least minimally make things visible. If you’re not gonna sponsor a position, keep, make that very visible in the job description, right? Have more grace and flexibility and empathy where your students can like, be more explicit in saying, I don’t mind you spending some time in a professional development. Uh, don’t keep it sort of hanging so they assume the worst. And so the, in this climate, like I hope that each of us as mentors, as employers, as managers have a role to play where we might not be able to make systemic changes, but we can improve the lives of our international colleagues and trainees every day by making small choices.

Emily (51:05): I think that’s a wonderful place to end our discussion. Um, if people are curious and want to read the book, where can they find it?

Sonali (51:12): This is how it looks. It’s a very pretty color <laugh>. Um, but yeah, you’ll find it in every you know, place where you can find books, Barnes and Nobles, uh, Amazon, as well as I’d recommend going into the University of California press site and you’ll get a 30% discount if you actually buy through the press site.

Best Financial Advice for Another Early-Career PhD

Emily (51:30): Beautiful. Um, okay. Final question that I ask of all my guests. Uh, what is your best financial advice for an early career PhD? And that could be something that we’ve touched on already in the interview or it could be something completely new,

Sonali (51:44): Um, like I said, like, you know, definitely saving and creating some wealth, whether it’s through investments. Um, and the other thing that I’ve learned is diversifying to the extent possible, um, your investment portfolio, um, so that you are not very sort of, um, vulnerable to any sort of like market changes. And so whether that’s equity or other sources of investment, think about that. So yeah, my best financial advice would be actually getting an advisor and seeing how you can even in small ways build your wealth. Um, there’s a lot of financial literacy resources, financial advisors who are free of cost at universities. That’s the best thing about universities. A lot of these things that cost you outside in your life actually come as free resources at universities. So take advantage of that. Um, even if it’s once a year, schedule that time in your calendar maybe every summer to just check in with your financial advisor and talk to them about how do you improve your portfolio.

Emily (52:43): Mm, very good point. Yeah, it’s very popular now for universities to have financial wellness offices or something titled similar to that. So that would be a great, um, first stop in addition to the international house actually, or international office, um, in yeah, getting some of these financial issues sorted that we’ve touched on in the interview. So Sonali, thank you so much for giving this interview. Congratulations on the book. Um, I hope it’s a wild success and thank you so much for sharing your insight with us.

Sonali (53:10): Thank you so much, Emily. This is always a pleasure talking to you.

Outro

Emily (53:23): Listeners, thank you for joining me for this episode! I have a gift for you! You know that final question I ask of all my guests regarding their best financial advice? My team has collected short summaries of all the answers ever given on the podcast into a document that is updated with each new episode release. You can gain access to it by registering for my mailing list at PFforPhDs.com/advice/. Would you like to access transcripts or videos of each episode? I link the show notes for each episode from PFforPhDs.com/podcast/. See you in the next episode, and remember: You don’t have to have a PhD to succeed with personal finance… but it helps! Nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as financial, tax, or legal advice for any individual. The music is “Stages of Awakening” by Podington Bear from the Free Music Archive and is shared under CC by NC. Podcast editing by me and show notes creation by Dr. Jill Hoffman.

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