F-1 Work Map — plan.andypandy.org

What actually happened

Three documents, none of which changed the law. All of them changed what BIO will sign.

Aug 12 — ICE memo 2608-01. A “broadcast message” to school officials, not a regulation. It says CPT may only be authorized when the training is so integral that the degree is unattainable without it and every student in the program must do it. It reminds DSOs they sign the I-20 under penalty of perjury and names a fraud tipline. BIO read that and suspended Course Credit CPT the next day.

Aug 24 — ICE memo 2608-02. Issued today. Q&A format. “In any instance where an elective course is optional, making the CPT optional, the integral and required aspects of CPT would not be met.” That is the course-credit route by name. DHS also updated its CPT help page today to point DSOs at both memos. This is doubling down, not walking back. Expect BIO to stay suspended unless someone sues.

BIO’s degree-requirement list. Twenty-six programs still get CPT. One is a bachelor’s: B.S. Educational Sciences. No Data Science, CS, EECS, Economics, Applied Math, Statistics, or Haas undergrad. For an undeclared L&S freshman heading toward quant or CS, CPT is closed twice over — you also could not have used it before completing Fall + Spring.

Work-study, plainly. Federal work-study is a US financial-aid program. No F-1 student qualifies, ever. It is not why you cannot work; it just means you skip postings marked work-study required. Most Berkeley on-campus postings are open to everyone, and F-1 on-campus work needs no authorization from BIO or USCIS at all.

Tomorrow, then this week

Tue Aug 25 — BIO Undergraduate In-Person Welcome Day, 8:00–12:30, then in-person drop-in 1:00–4:00. One visit, one list, answers by email afterward: (1) will BIO issue a pre-completion OPT I-20 for a June 1, 2027 start, and what filing date and fee do they want; (2) your I-20 major reads “General Studies” and the new rule bars changing it in year one — does a quant or software internship count as “related to major”, and can you declare Data Science in January; (3) does today’s ICE memo 2608-02 change the suspension timeline; (4) are expenses-paid insight events with a daily stipend (Jane Street FTTP, Citadel Discover) fine; (5) may you accept a hackathon cash prize (Cal Hacks 13.0, Oct 23–25); (6) occasional own-account stock trading, and where the line to self-employment sits.Tue Aug 25 · 2150 Shattuck, 5th floor
Submit the Cal Dining Fall 2026 student form. Open now, $19.61–21.34/hr, free meal each shift, no work-study language anywhere. Then Handshake: Jobs → Filters → Job type → On Campus Student Employment; save the search with alerts. Work-study-only postings are hidden from you, so anything you can see is open to you.Aug 25 · listings spike after Aug 26
Save your Continued Attendance I-20. Open the Aug 18 DocuSign email, “View Completed Document”, save the PDF to Drive. The link expires. Check the program end date (expected 17 May 2030) and the major line.today
Prepare the I-9 folder: passport, printed I-94 from i94.cbp.dhs.gov, signed I-20. Every campus hire asks for these in person.this week
URAP — credit only, not pay; main-campus projects only (LBNL/UCSF closed to internationals while CPT is on hold). Deadline Mon Aug 31, 4:00pm. Cal Job Shadow (Jan 4–15) is observation, not employment — register by Oct 26.Aug 31 · Oct 26
Winter break: decide after Sept 3. The verified cost of leaving after Sept 15 is 30 days of post-graduation cushion in 2030 plus a fixed I-94 date to check after every entry. If you do go home, work for a Hong Kong employer is legal while you are physically in Hong Kong — and only then.Sept 3 hearing · Sept 15 effective
Feb 1, 2027 — OPT paperwork starts. Calendar below.Feb 1, 2027

Every route, ranked by safety

“Employment” in F-1 law means any service performed for an employer while physically inside the US. Pay is irrelevant. That single definition explains every row below.

Route	Status	The rule	For you
On-campus job	allowed	Paid by UC Berkeley on campus, or a commercial firm on campus serving students. No authorization. 20 hr/wk aggregate in term.	The path this year. Needs an SSN for the paycheck, not to start.
Fellowship or stipend, no duties	allowed	Money with no service requirement is not employment. Add RA/TA duties and it becomes on-campus work (counts toward 20 hrs).	SURF L&S takes internationals but wants junior/senior standing.
URAP, main campus	allowed	Unpaid, for credit, Berkeley faculty. Not employment.	Best research door as a freshman. Skip LBNL/UCSF listings.
Cal Job Shadow	allowed	Observation and informational interviews, no services performed.	Register by Oct 26. Confirm with BIO if a host asks you to do work.
Nonprofit volunteering	allowed	Charitable/civic org, zero compensation, not displacing a paid worker, ideally outside your field.	“Unpaid” alone does not make something volunteering.
Passive income	allowed	Interest, dividends, buy-and-hold gains, rent, royalties from work done before entry.	Fine.
Active trading income	gray	No regulation addresses it. DSO guidance: anything where you put in time and effort to generate income can be read as self-employment.	DSO guidance (UW, BYU, UMass): occasional investing is fine; frequent or automated trading can look like employment. Ask BIO tomorrow; keep it passive until then.
Hackathon prize money	gray, leaning ok	An award, not pay for services. Nothing from BIO on it.	Watch for post-win obligations that look like work.
International-organization internship	needs EAD	UN agencies, World Bank, IMF. USCIS EAD, but no one-year wait — the only off-campus route open before May 2027.	Niche, slow (90+ days), real.
Pre-completion OPT	needs EAD	After one academic year (May 14, 2027). Any employer, must relate to I-20 major. Full-time allowed in summer.	Your summer-2027 route. Calendar below.
Economic-hardship EAD	needs EAD	After one academic year, only for unforeseen hardship, capped at 20 hr/wk combined with on-campus.	Not a planning tool.
CPT	closed	Course-credit suspended; degree-requirement list has no L&S/CS/Data undergrad major; and one academic year required anyway.	Stop planning around it.
Unpaid internship at a for-profit	not allowed	BIO: “Any off-campus work experience should be authorized, whether paid or unpaid.” DOL’s primary-beneficiary test makes most of these employment.	Decline unless BIO authorizes it. Status violation with zero pay is still a violation.
Remote work for a non-US employer	not allowed	Location of the worker controls, not the employer (8 CFR 274a.1(h): “within the United States”).	A Hong Kong job done from Durant Ave is US employment. Only do it while physically in HK.
Freelance, gigs, bounties, AdSense, app revenue	not allowed	Self-employment is employment.	Ship open source; do not take payouts for it.
Startups renting campus space, LBNL	not on-campus	On-campus-located firms count only if they serve students. Off-campus “educationally affiliated” work is limited to post-graduate contract research.	Ask BIO before assuming an LBNL role is on-campus.

The cost of getting any red row wrong: the DSO must terminate your SEVIS record, you leave immediately, no grace period, and it resurfaces in every later OPT, STEM OPT, and H-1B adjudication.

On-campus jobs, verified

Floor is Berkeley’s minimum wage, $19.61/hr since July 1, 2026; student-assistant (STDT 2) range $19.61–27.81. None of these require work-study.

Channel	Pay	Work-study	How
Cal Dining	$19.61–21.34 + a free meal per shift	not mentioned	Google form on dining.berkeley.edu — open now.
Handshake, on-campus filter	$19.61+	required-only postings are hidden from you	berkeley.joinhandshake.com → Job type: On Campus Student Employment. Save the search.
RSF Building Employee (RecWell)	$19.61 (page still says $19.18)	preferred, not required	Handshake; 5–20 hr/wk; needs 2+ semesters left.
UC Berkeley Library	$19.61+	not required	All postings on Handshake; office 110 Doe.
Residential Life Safety Ambassador	$19.61+	strong preference, not required	Google form; continuous hiring; 9pm–1am shifts; max 19 hr/wk.
Department Student Assistant (STDT 2–4)	$19.61–27.81	separate non-work-study postings	Handshake and department sites; email CDSS, EECS, Statistics offices directly.
SLC peer tutor	$21.36	not required	Rolling; 3.0 GPA plus program quals. The Fall 2026 writing-tutor round closed Aug 24.
Course staff: Data 8 / CS 61A tutor, reader	$21.36 reader or 1:1 tutor; $24.64 group tutor	not required	After passing the course with a B or better and 3.0 GPA — Data 8 staff from Spring 2027 at the earliest.
ResLife Academic Center tutor	$22.81	—	Needs completed course pairs (Math 10A+10B, R1A+R1B). Next deadline Oct 19 for Spring; not yet.
Cal Performances, BAMPFA, DSP attendant	part-time	open to all	No postings today; direct inquiry (dsp-assist@berkeley.edu for DSP).
Closed to you	College Corps (citizens, not first-years) · BUILD (work-study pay only) · ResLife Administrative Clerk (work-study required) · SURF L&S (juniors and seniors) · Rose Hills (citizens)

Hiring paperwork: Form I-9 with passport + I-94 (List A), I-20 as the status document. SSN may be left as “applied for.” Keep a folder of offer letters, hours, and pay stubs from day one — every later OPT and H-1B filing may ask.

Social Security number

Needed for the paycheck, not to start working.

Get a job offer. The employer fills BIO’s on-campus employment letter on letterhead.
Email the letter to BIO for endorsement. 5 business days.
Book an in-person SSA appointment online. Office: 2045 Allston Way, Berkeley.
Bring form SS-5, passport, I-94, I-20, the endorsed letter. Ask for a receipt.
Card arrives in about two weeks. Hand it to the employer.

Earliest you can apply: 10 days after your arrival confirmation (submitted Aug 15; SEVIS activated Aug 18) and not before the first day of class — so Aug 26–28, 2026, once you hold an offer letter. Apply no more than 30 days before the start date on it.

Tax side: give every US payer a W-8BEN, never a W-9. Expect 30% withholding on US-source prizes and dividends (no Hong Kong treaty). File Form 8843 for 2026, plus 1040-NR if you earn wages, by Apr 15, 2027 — BIO provides Sprintax.

Duration of status

Final rule published Jul 17, effective Sept 15, 2026, unless a court stops it.

Lawsuit: Presidents’ Alliance v. DHS, D. Mass. 1:26-cv-13799. Preliminary-injunction hearing Sept 3, 11:00 AM. UC filed a declaration in support. USCIS is proceeding regardless (new form editions dated 09/15/26).
Your stay if it takes effect: your I-20 ends 17 May 2030, so authorized stay runs to 16 July 2030 (end date + 60 days; the Nov 14, 2030 cap does not bite). Confirm on the Aug 18 I-20.
Leave and re-enter after Sept 15: you get I-20 end + 30 days (16 June 2030) instead, and spring-2030 OPT will need an I-539 extension alongside the I-765. Check the Admit Until date at i94.cbp.dhs.gov after every entry; a CBP error must be fixed at once.
Aug 31: government’s court response due; SEVP public webinar on the rule 2–3pm EDT.
Grace period after graduation: 30 days now, not 60.
Majors: undergrads cannot change the educational objective on the I-20 in the first academic year.
Does not change: on-campus work, CPT eligibility, OPT eligibility. Adds a 240-day work continuation while an extension is pending.

Pre-completion OPT, the calendar

One form to USCIS (I-765, category c-3-A). No employer needed on the application. No extension-of-stay filing, because the whole period sits inside your admission period.

Feb 1–5, 2027Submit BIO’s OPT I-20 request. BIO turnaround is 5 business days, no expedites. L&S students need the major-adviser step first.
Feb 8–12OPT I-20 issued. USCIS must receive the I-765 within 30 days of this date.
Feb 13–16File I-765 online. Earliest legal date is 90 days before the academic year ends. $470 online. Add I-907 premium, $1,780 — 30 business days guaranteed. Standard processing is “80% within 4 months,” which lands after June 1.
Mar 18Does not apply to you. The rule’s Mar 18, 2027 exemption (new 8 CFR 214.1(m)(1)(i)) is written only for post-completion and STEM OPT. Pre-completion OPT inside your program dates never needs an extension filing — verified against the rule text.
~Late MarEAD card in hand with premium. Requested start date: June 1.
May 14, 2027One academic year complete. Spring semester ends. Work may not begin before this.
Jun 1 – Aug 9Ten weeks full-time. Costs 70 days of your 12-month OPT bank (part-time would cost half). STEM OPT’s 24-month extension is unaffected.

Two catches to raise with BIO tomorrow. First, BIO publishes no pre-completion OPT page or form — its e-form is built for post-completion, and its OPT tutorial says it is not yet updated for the Sept 15 rule. Second, the DSO recommends OPT against the major on your I-20, and yours reads General Studies (24.0102). BIO normally issues a new I-20 automatically when you declare; under the new rule it may have to hold that until after May 2027 (DHS may also delay that clause to Sept 2028). Only BIO can say which.

Total cost of the route: $470 I-765 + $1,780 premium, plus possibly BIO’s $250 OPT services fee — about $2,500. Since Aug 5 USCIS may deny without first requesting more evidence, so file clean the first time. DHS also sent a proposed OPT-fee rule to OMB on Aug 20; re-check fees in January.

Your program list through this lens

From the job hunt. Every card checked against the program’s own page on Aug 24 (43 cards; a few pages were down or behind Cloudflare and are marked).

Class	Programs	What it means now
no auth needed	Jane Street FTTP (expenses-paid, daily stipend) & Bridge, Citadel Discover, Citadel Securities Trading Invitational (~$750 value, possible stipend), GS Possibilities, Pear Garage, Cal Job Shadow, BCE first-year events	Insight and discovery programs — educational, not employment. Load up on these. Ask BIO tomorrow to confirm the stipends are fine.
check	SIG First-Year Discovery, Inside HRT, Morgan Stanley Early Insights	SIG’s US cycle open now is for class of 2029 — not you this round (Sydney only). Inside HRT page is 404 today. MS Early Insights page not found.
pre-completion OPT	Explore Microsoft, Google STEP, NVIDIA Ignite, Amazon Propel, UberSTAR, Two Sigma First-Year SWE (not posted yet), D. E. Shaw (says it sponsors work authorization, all class years), Jump Trading (explicitly accepts CPT/OPT), Tower Research, Group One, Roblox, Scale AI, Stripe, Bloomberg, OpenAI, KP Fellows, 8VC, Parker Dewey micro-internships	Paid US employment. Was CPT; now OPT. At offer: ask for a start date on or after May 17, 2027 and confirm they onboard on an OPT EAD (I-9 List A). No employer sponsorship is needed.
hard block	Claude Corps (F-1 excluded; also full-time 12-month W-2 — impossible while enrolled), Anthropic Fellows (needs existing US work authorization), DOE SULI at LBNL (citizens/LPR), LBNL/UCSF URAP (CPT), Belvedere (class-gated to 2027–28 grads), SURF L&S (juniors/seniors), Rose Hills (citizens), College Corps	Skip. Drop Claude Corps from the list.
unclear	Z Fellows (investment in your startup — F-1 founder work has its own rules), Neo Scholars (grant + mentorship), WorldQuant BRAIN payouts (contractor pay from a US address = employment), MATS (J-1 only), Bridgewater Rising Fellows (dormant)	Grants with no duties are fine; anything that pays for work is not.

Where others landed

UC San Diego paused all F-1 CPT. Santa Clara is holding every non-degree-requirement request. UC Irvine, UC Davis, and UVA split it the way Berkeley did. Davidson revoked already-approved fall CPT.
UIUC now authorizes CPT only if the catalog requires it of all students and the employer has a cooperative agreement; elective-course internships are out.
Carnegie Mellon, Boston University, Dartmouth: no suspension posted as of Aug 24, each “seeking clarification.” Stanford: no notice. MIT, Columbia, UCLA, Michigan, Harvard: unknown — pages blocked or not found.
No lawsuit targets the CPT memos. APLU calls it a reversion to first-Trump-era guidance. Fall co-op CPT denials at other schools began around Aug 24; students are pivoting to pre-completion OPT, and some DSOs are unfamiliar with it.
The Daily Cal (Aug 14): BIO will not resume until counsel clears it; no timeline. BIO has sent nothing since Aug 13 — including on today’s memo.

What was checked, and what changed

Nineteen agents. Six load-bearing claims went to adversarial verifiers told to refute them; four gap-fill agents chased what a critic flagged.

Confirmed: pre-completion OPT inside your program dates needs no extension filing. Mar 18 is irrelevant to you — the rule text names post-completion and STEM OPT only.
Confirmed: leaving after Sept 15 costs 30 days in 2030 and a fixed I-94 date. Nothing else, for a class-of-2030 bachelor’s.
Confirmed: an unpaid for-profit internship is employment under BIO’s rules. Volunteering is a different legal category, not a pay level.
Corrected: earliest SSN date is Aug 26–28, not Sept 5. Your arrival confirmation went in Aug 15; SEVIS was activated Aug 18.
Corrected: the one-year rule blocks starting work, not applying. File Feb 13, hold the card before May 14. International-organization internships have no one-year wait at all.
Nuanced: the ICE memos have no legal force, but they are explicit enforcement instructions backed by personal-liability threats to DSOs. That is why BIO acted and why others are following.
Still open, only BIO can answer: will they recommend OPT against a “General Studies” I-20 major, and may you declare Data Science in January under the first-year rule. Ask tomorrow.
Still open: frequent or automated trading income. DSO guidance (UW, BYU, UMass Dartmouth) says regular, effort-driven trading can look like employment; SEVP and USCIS say nothing. Ask tomorrow; keep it passive meanwhile.