Unfortunately the US really has ridiculous Visa policies across the board, with different types of documentation needed for different levels of the same thing.
If you want to do a CPT (internship while your course is ongoing), you can just inform your school and it's fine. But if you want to do it after the course (OPT), you have to apply for an EAD, which adds another 3 months of delay. Why can't the attestation on your I-94 be enough?
It's like the USCIS creates additional paper work for itself so that it can cry about having too much work.
If you want to do a CPT (internship while your course is ongoing), you can just inform your school and it's fine. But if you want to do it after the course (OPT), you have to apply for an EAD, which adds another 3 months of delay. Why can't the attestation on your I-94 be enough?
It's like the USCIS creates additional paper work for itself so that it can cry about having too much work.