It is extremely hard for international students to find a job off campus. The author of the article Greatest Challenge as an International Student Is Work, Valerie Brockman argues that although there is a way to work somewhere else other than on-campus while maintaining their visa statuses, the immigration law that prevents international students to hold an off-campus position poses a lot of difficulties for these students who are seeking more experience outside the classroom. The author relies heavily on ethos by establishing herself as an international student at the beginning of the article and by explaining the reason behind everything she does as she goes on and talks about her experience job-hunting as an international student, showing her understanding on the subject matter. At the same time, she uses quite an amount of pathos to draw sympathy and back up her argument. Despite some attempts in using pathos and logos, ethos appear to be the strongest appeal that the author uses in this article.

The author started the article by telling the reader that she is an international student, using both ethos and pathos. This establishes the author's authority and credibility, and at the same time, makes the readers sympathize with what the author has to go through being this far away from home. She then starts to talk about all the process that she has to go through when she decided to work off-campus using pathos, as she adds "when I decided to work off-campus, I had to undergo a mountain of bureaucracy"(Brockman). This allows the readers to sympathize the author even more and gives the author a rhetorical advantage.

The author uses both ethos and logos here and explains everything she does or she has to do clearly to the audience. She explains how when she wanted to work off-campus, she had to temporarily switch to a different major, take an one credit hour class, and have numerous meetings with her supervisors and school officials, in order to apply for work authorization via a channel called Curricular Practical Training (CPT), one of the few legal pathways for international students to apply for off-campus work authorization. Although logos is involved, there is not a strong logical approach in this aspect of the article. Especially it can be relatively hard for the general population to understand the logic behind many immigration regulations for international students.

All three rhetorical appeals, although independent, can collaborate with each other and create a strong, convincing claim. Brockman uses all three appeals when she talks about how her parents' income was not enough to support her, and she applied for an off-campus work authorization for international students who experience economic hardships. The most obvious rhetorical appeal that the author uses is pathos, she talks about her family not having enough income to support her studying abroad here in the United States and she has to work off-campus to be able to support herself. We can also see logos play a fairly big role here when the author breaks down and analyze the mechanism that allows international students to apply for an off-campus work authorization when they experience economic hardships. The last one, although very subtle, it plays a very important role in making this story fit perfectly in the article. The author uses ethos by telling her reader that she has experienced these events and she overcame all these obstacles and challenges in order to be here and talk to the readers about her experience. The way the three rhetorical appeals work together here makes others almost impossible to argue with the author about this story.

Toward the end of the article, the author attempts to offer some advice to her readers on how other international students can go about obtaining an off-campus work authorization through several other pathways. However, these are not as convincing as the previous ones that the author personally have experience in applying because the ethos barely present. There is a very subtle presence of logos when she tries to sell these pathways to her readers based on her success in two other routes.

In conclusion, although the author used all three rhetorical appeals in this article, the most effective one is the ethos because it does a better job at convincing and engaging the readers. The author also use a considerable amount of pathos in her article to make her readers sympathize with her circumstances. However, toward the end of the article all three appeals become weaker and is not as convincing as it sounds at the beginning of the article, as the author tries to offer advice based on something that she has no experience in doing. Instead of giving advice, the author could have just focus on her own experience and elaborate on those experiences, not only will this be more convincing to her readers, but will also give the readers a better idea what it was like to be in the same position as her.

