I am an international student too!
My advice is to go to some conferences that you get funding for then you don't have to spend all of your own money to get EQM. - No MR needed and you get to see places and network with other students and industry. However that will probably not be more than max 10000 a year.
I managed YVR-ORD r/t YVR/ATL r/t and YVR/YUL r/t this year and YVR-YUL and YVR-YOW last year with two different organizations.
It will likely involve some volunteering which you may wanna get into. In which case you should also try to funnel all the expenses through your own credit card. This year I bought $4000 worth of liquor, $1500 worth of food, $4000 worth of plane tickets, $4000 worth of hotels. A year ago they let me buy 16 plane tickets to Ottawa which was $8000.
When I started university I went for KL Gold because of their generous elite bonuses which made 3 trips per year cost the same as 2 trips per year almost with all the extra lounge access etc - plus I like flying.

Hello there,

I'm an international student too! I'm in the same situation. I have a shorter credit history (6 months) and I want to apply for the Starwood AMEX. Currently I have a Discover and a Citi Forward Visa. My credit score as I've checked from creditkarma.com is 680-700. What do you think? Should I wait before applying to have a score of 750+? Does anybody have any previous experience getting this card with not an excellent credit score?

Thanks,
Ngls

SPG AMEX application review is getting more strict on the recent history of frequent credit card application. Since you just got your two credit cards within 6 months, I would suggest that you wait for another couple of months.