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More coffee shops outside Sichuan Normal University? No honest, this is probably going to be the last of them in this location… That said, I’m at U&M on the second floor of the complex just outside SNU’s big gate.
Wifi name: U&M COFFEE (password from the staff)
VPN used? No
Server: London (hosted by Vodafone)
I’m still hanging around the coffee shops at the entrance to Sichuan Normal University. Today I’m on the 4th floor at a place that I think is called Love Coffee.
Wifi name: loveyou (password available from the staff)
VPN used? No
Server: London (hosted by Vodafone)
Try advertising on this forum for someone (that’s how I found someone to help me with my PhD interviews). Rates are a bit trickier – it depends what you want your interviewer to be doing, if they’ll be spending all day every day with you, or just half a day once a week etc. etc. My suggestion is to negotiate with any applicant who replies to your post and find a price you both find reasonable. Good luck!
Hi Kevin,
The advice people have already listed above is all very good. Searching the internet for scholarships, both private and governmentally funded, is a good first step. However before you start that, you need to think about a few fundamental questions which might make your search easier. These are:
a) What is it you hope to achieve or gain by studying abroad? Is it work experience, language proficiency, broadening your interior design skills, improving your CV, a chance to see the world or some other motivation? Of course, all of these factors will be important to you, but which is the most important? When you can understand what you want to get out of studying abroad perhaps it will help you find a good institution to study at, or a country you really want to go to. Money is important, but if you end up going to a cheap place that doesn’t give you what you want, then what’s the point?
b) How long do you want to study abroad for? For a three-four year period to do an undergrad degree, one-two years to do a Masters or 3+ to do a PhD? And if you want to do a post-grad degree, think carefully about time pressures; working and studying through post grad studies is really tough and I don’t recommend it if you don’t have to do it – it’s even tougher in a foreign country if you don’t speak the native language (like Pardhu mentioned about his experiences in Italy), even if you do speak English. This is also a question by itself: do you want to study in an English speaking country, or are you willing to learn a new language?
c) This varies from country to country, but people do get in trouble for it – will you be able to work on a student visa when you go abroad? I think you will be able to, but there are likely to be conditions on your visa restricting what kind of work you do (I think in the UK on a student visa you can only do part time work. Not sure though). This is worth checking out for the countries you are thinking of going to.
I think studying abroad is great, it gives you a chance to develop skills and confidence and helps you learn about yourself. I don’t want to sound discouraging! But from your original post, I get the feeling that you need to consider these three questions carefully and then perhaps you will have a clearer idea of what you want, and which countries fit your specifications.
Good luck! Follow your dreams – but make sure you know what they are 🙂
Today I’m in 台湾美乐利, a coffee shop on the second floor of the complex at the gate of Sichuan Normal University. Obscure location but I live around these parts, so you’re getting them all.
Wifi name: 3 (password available from the staff)
VPN used? No
Server: London (hosted by Vodafone).
Okay, KaffeStugen has the most incredible consumables so far. Here’s the wifi news:
Wifi name: KAFFESTUGAN (KAFFESTUGEN. is also available; password available from staff)
VPN used? No
Server: London [hosted by Vodafone]
Next up, The Bookworm.
In response to Ben’s suggestion I’ve used an overseas server and will continue to do so for the rest of the tests. I may go back and re-test the ones I’ve already done in Raffles, but it’s not high priority. For the record I’m using a London server because… I’m British. And America had too many billions of servers for me to be able to find the same one twice.
So, here goes:
Wifi name: Bookworm1 (Bookworm2 also available; both password protected)
VPN used? No
Server: London [hosted by Vodafone]
@ben – thank you! I will use this way for future tests.
@Charlie – Cool! I will keep going in that case, but I don’t plan to test any Starbucks, Costa, etc. places since I’m pretty sure they’re going to be slow.
@ everyone – if anyone else is interested in chipping in with progress, please feel free to post speed findings on this thread. Just think, your contributions may save me being completely over-caffeinated for the rest of my time in Chengdu!
Okay! On paper the Pacific Coffee connection was pretty fast but using it I found that it seemed to drop a lot and I spent quite a lot of time staring at the spinning circle of eternal loading in Chrome. I am no where near tech savvy enough to offer a suggestion why though.
Re: Ben’s remark above about controlling for servers – due to aforementioned lack of tech savviness, the only way I know to make speedtest.net use a non-Chinese server is to use my VPN (Astrill), but then for some reason the speednet.com test failed to complete the upload speed test every time. So so far I’m not controlling for servers, but if anyone has any suggestions on this front then I am all ears.
Anyway, next up: Via Via Traveller’s Cafe on L3 of Raffles City (out on the plaza).
Wifi name: VIAVIA1 or VIAVIA2 (password protected, ask staff)
VPN used? No.
Hey Vincent – yeah, it’s pretty good! But I realise I was using a different network (‘My_Wifi) to the one normally available to customers (Pacific Coffee). When I arrived I couldn’t connect to Pacific Coffee, so the waiters hooked me up on the My Wifi connection. Later I tried out the Pacific Coffee network again (hence the edited post above) and it seems much slower than the My Wifi one…
Ben – I’ll try and work out how to test on a non-China server and update.
Okay, since I’m going to be doing a tour of all the wifi providing places in Chengdu for the hunt for the fastest speeds, I thought I’d document my experiences here in case anyone else is also interested. It’s basically a continuation of the sterling work that user Trudat did six months ago on the link Brendan posted above (here:“Costa Coffee at Raffles”).
— If the mods feel that this is stupidly repetitive of Trudat’s thread, let me know and I’ll cease and desist 🙂
So, starting with Pacific Coffee at Raffles, on B2:
Wifi name – ‘Pacific Coffee’ (password needed from your till receipt)
VPN used? – No
Wifi name – ‘My_Wifi’ (password protected – have to ask the staff for access)
VPN used? – No
Quote:I have a little guesthouse in JinJiang and sometimes customers ask to me why internet is so slowly… believe me Alison, don’t depend only from configuration of router but quality and speed of line…Don’t worry Federico, I believe you! It’s one of my least favourite things about China. Every time I come back I hope that the massive annual increase in netizens will be reflected in a massive increase in related internet capacity and infrastructure but…
… well, a girl can dream, right?
I’m also suffering slow internet in Jinjiang! But I suspect that is more to do with the peculiar set up in the router set-up of the family I’m staying with…
Thanks so much guys! I’ve had three inquires now as a result of your help. I’ve emailed everyone back so that we can work out the most suitable solution.
Thanks again!
