The Moment of Dream Come True

 
This is gonna be the most inspiring and wonderful news never then ever besides admission to the exchange program.  
 
To turely understand a language and to speak like native speakers including both speed and accent (my goal), I think 4 months is not enough.  That's why I was eager to extend my duration of time in the United States.  However, before I came here, all of the information all told me it's not gonna be possible to extend my J-1 visa, which made me upset for a while.
 
Today from ISSO(International and Students and Scholars office) office, I learned I can extend my visa by applying for an academic traning, an employment directly related to my major field of study.  In addition, a one-semester exchange student is eligible for 4 months of Academic Training.  That's really excellent!   I will definitely do my best to achieve this goal - getting a job offer from employers.
 
Oh ya!!  Before being qualified to find a job, I need to sharpen my English first during these 4 months.   Yes, it's quite hard and must be very challenging, but I believe the more difficult the goal is, the bigger achieverment I will have.  I seem like to be a person to enjoy achieving goals.
 
GO GO GO! Keep going!  Eileen

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Academic Training (AT) for J-1 Students
http://www.brandeis.edu/isso/AT_Howto.html

Academic Training is employment directly related to your major field of study in the United States. The total amount of AT depends on the duration of time spent as a full time student. If you are enrolled as a degree candidate, you are eligible for 18 months of AT. However, Doctoral Students may be eligible for 36 months of AT with the successful completion of the Ph.D. Exchange students may be eligible for the AT based on the number of months that they participated as a full time student at Brandeis. For example, a one-semester exchange is eligible for 4 months of Academic Training. In counting months of authorization, part-time Academic Training counts the same as full-time.

Academic Training is date specific and employer specific. You must have a job offer in order to apply for AT. If you decide to extend your employment, you must receive new authorization for AT from the ISSO before the current authorization has expired. If you decide to change employers, you must also obtain a new authorization. Both situations would require that you follow the same process as your initial authorization. If you fail to obtain proper authorization, you will violate your student status.

PLEASE NOTE: YOU MAY NOT BEGIN YOUR ACADEMIC TRAINING UNTIL THE ISSO HAS GIVEN YOU WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION. WORKING IMPROPERLY OR WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION IS A SERIOUS VIOLATION OF YOUR J-1 STATUS AND WOULD RESULT IN THE LOSS OF BENEFITS NORMALLY GRANTED TO J-1 STUDENTS.