TN visa - Financial Engineering to Economist category

[wltjr95]

Hello everyone,

I will be applying for my first TN visa right out of college, and I graduated with a Financial Engineering degree. I am talking with my company on how we should proceed (still very early on in our discussion of my visa status), and I was wondering if it sounds reasonable that my Fin-eng degree falls under the Economist category. To me, it sounds very reasonable as a big portion of the major is simply highly mathematical economics, but I was wondering if this would be a risky move without a guarantee. Does anyone have similar experience or insight on this?

Thank you!

 

[nelsona]

Could be doable. I don't know why you would use the term "risky". Any time you apply for a job, you face the risk of not qualifying, or simply not getting the job. Then you move on. not an undue risk.

But, to be sure, you need to look at the OOH definition of Economist (that is what the officers will look at, to determine if the job you are doing is as an economist. Then they will look at your degree and course load to determine if Financial Engineering is close enough to an economics degree. I would consult with a TN-specialist lawyer (not any old immigration lawyer).

An economist, of course, would deny that FE is anywhere near and Economics degree, and an Engineer would simply sigh and say, just one more job that is pimped-up by adding the term Engineer: Domestic Engineer, Sanitation Engineer, etc.

The trouble is, the NAFTA list is static, and doesn't adapt itself for these new-age fields of study. So, it will take some tap-dancing. And success this time doesn't guarantee success when you go to renew in three-year (THAT is where the risk is -- which is overcome by getting an H1-B in the intervening years if one can).