@jumbofish -- I guess Its safe to assume that you will be graduating in May 2014, and therefore you will start work from June. And I guess you will have your OPT at that time valid for 12 months. And By this time you already know that H1-B application is initiated by Employer, although there are documents that your will have to furnish..Also you can hire your own attorney (provided your company is OK with it) to do all the applications, just make sure that Employer pays for all the applications fees. This is a LAW. Here are the couple of scenario that you can think .. Since you will have your OPT for first 12 months until May 2015, do Not worry about filing H1-B coming year in 2014. File in 2015 April. There is something called CAP-GAP rule that allows you to work even your OPT expires before October 1st ( October 1st is when actually your H1-B starts) if you have filed for H1-B before your OPT expires. In your case your OPT doesn't expire until May 2015, so if you file H1-B in April of 2015, you can still continue to work until October 2015. The only thing is that your H1-B doesn't get rejected. If you are STEM, and can extend your OPT another 17 months, work on OPT. and file H1-B on the last year. @kaaluBaby -- This happened around 2007. I had two friends who graduated with Bachelors degrees in Chemistry. They worked for a year in OPT. Then they joined back in Bachelors again, this time in Med technology. Once They graduated, they were able to get OPT again for another year. I know your are referring to one OPT per degree level. But Somewhere I heard that if your second degree is substantially different than previous degree, you can file for another OPT. Make sure with your international advisor, try to convince them, there might be some rules somewhere in USCIS. You know sometimes these international advisors doesn't know all the rules. They change too...Find it print them and take with you...