Work and study in United States of America
Work
All foreigners need a visa to work in the country, and if you're visiting on a normal tourist visa (non immigrant visitor's visa) it's illegal for you to take up any paid employment in the U.S.A. Employers have legal obligations to check on the employment status of all new employees and face heavy penalties if caught employing any illegal workers. That makes finding work a lot more difficult than it was for a tourist trying to subsidize their vacation than it was a few decades ago. A tourist working illegally is liable to be deported from the country and not allowed to return for a long period of time.
There are some avenues for legal paid work as a visitor. An H1B visa, for example, let's you take up employment in a skilled position after you find an employer willing to sponsor you. There's also the J1 visa, which is for young people taking up summer camp work, short trainee postions, or vacation employment. Seasonal work is possible in national parks, tourist sites, and especially ski areas.
The bottom line is that you shouldn't count on making any extra money as a tourist in America. Of course, you could always take up busking or working as a location independent professional, but either is outside of the scope of this article.
Study
U.S. universities are among the best in the world, and each has a sizeable contingent of foreign students. Possibly the easiest way to study in America is to arrange an exchange with the university you're currently attending in your home country. Many, if not most, have exchange agreements with U.S. institutions and will send you to America in exchange for an American student taking up a place at your university.
More difficult is the option of taking up a place as a degree seeking student in the U.S. If you want to find out more, you can contact the Fulbright Commission in your home country, see fulbright.state.gov. There's also more information at www.educationusa.state.gov.
Keep in mind that tuition fees can be quite steep, so remember to budget for those, living costs, and a sizeable chunk more if you're planning on seeing as much of the country as you should.
