It is extremely hard for international students to find a job off campus, despite the language and cultural challenges that these students are already facing on a daily basis. 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 strict 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, however, she also uses quite an amount of pathos to draw sympathy and back up her argument, which seems to work pretty well in terms of engaging her audience to the topic. Even though the author seems to be using all three rhetorical appeals relatively evenly, ethos appear to be the strongest and the most effecient appeal that the author uses in this article.

The author starts the article by telling the reader that she is an international student, using ethos to establish her authority and credibility, at the same time, she also utilizes pathos to make her readers sympathize with what the she has to go through emotionally being this far away from home. This is especially important in terms of helping the author to get her readers more engaged to the topic. She then starts to talk about all the process that she has to go through when she decided to work off-campus, using pathos she tells her readers that "when I decided to work off-campus, I had to undergo a mountain of bureaucracy"(Brockman). This causes the readers to sympathize the author even more and gives the author a rhetorical advantage.

The author explains to the audience 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, and other excessive administrative process that she has to go through. Although logos is involved here, there is not a strong logical approach in this aspect of the article, especially when the author is just trying to demonstrate her frustration about this process. Additionally, it can be relatively hard for the general population to understand the logic behind many immigration regulations for international students, since most Americans are not familiar with the specifics when it comes to immigration laws and regulations.

All three rhetorical appeals, although independent, can collaborate with each other and create a strong, convincing claim. Brockman uses and arranges all three appeals delicately throughout her article when she talks about how her parents' income was not enough to support her studying in the US, 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 here is pathos. She talks about her family not having enough income to support her studying abroad here in the United States so she basically has to work off-campus in order for her to be able to support  her living expenses and tuition. Additionally, we can also see logos playing a fairly big role here when the author breaks down and analyzes the mechanism that allows international students to apply for an off-campus work authorization when they experience economic hardships. Last but not least, although very subtle, the author uses ethos (and probably a little bit of pathos) by telling her reader that she has experienced these events and she overcome all these obstacles and challenges in order to be here and talk to the readers about her experience. This is especially important because it tells her readers that she is a "survivor" of the viscous bureaucratic process and makes her more credible. The way the author makes these three rhetorical appeals collaborate with each other here makes others almost impossible to argue with the author about her 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, in my opinion, these are not as convincing as the previous ones that the author personally have experience in applying because the ethos is barely present here. In addition, there is a very subtle presence of logos when the author tries to sell these alternative ways to her readers based on her success in two other routes, which doesn't seem to be as effective.

In conclusion, although the author used all three rhetorical appeals pretty evenly in this article, the most effective one is the ethos because it does a better job at convincing and engaging the readers. In addition, the author also uses a considerable amount of pathos in her article in attempt to make her readers sympathize with her circumstances. Even though here pathos seems to be as effective, if not more, as ethos, it wouldn't work as well if it wasn't for the author's credibility, in other words, pathos was built upon the presence of ethos. Toward the end of the article all three appeals become weaker and the article does not seem to be as convincing as it sounds at the beginning, as the author tries to offer advice based on something that she somehow knew about but has no previous experience in doing. Instead of giving her readers advice, the author could have just focus on her own experience and elaborate on her success in those experiences, not only will this be more convincing to her readers, but will also give the readers a better idea what it is like to be in the same position as her.

