TECEP / TESC tests + courses while living in China....?

[Bearduke]

Speed tests still junk at night. It...doesn't even work? (Just hangs?) That's not good news.

Still waiting on transcripts. Financial Aid approved for both.

:toetap:

@John Yingling - Were you able to get the speed tests to work? I am also in NE China, and I am sorry that I missed your initial question since I can directly answer most of your questions. I just received notification today that I am approved for graduation from TESU in March, and I completed the last 12 credits here in Dalian.

I can tell you that it will be tough but not impossible. I don't know which city you're in but Dalian is kind of a tier 1.5 city (so the internet works but still has the Great Firewall to deal with). During my time, I had to submit final projects for two actual classes in Moodle (which worked). The major downside is that TESU and others use Google Images for captcha codes in order to make sure you aren't a robot; unfortunately Google images are blocked (as you know). This means that I could only login once I found the backend direct link to the Moodle login page (which thankfully didn't have captcha verification). Most people won't need to do captcha but it is required if your computer is coming from a China IP address. Double edged sword since it only happens for China but the images cannot be seen in China.

Testing: Saylor, Straighterline and TECEP were all important to my graduation and all use ProctorU for the test. The good news is that you won't be blocked from China (as long as you use TESU's direct link and don't rely on their homepage). The bad news is that even a good internet connection will drop periodically. First, I never relied on VPN since that will be interrupted if the state thinks you are using it (which is bad during a test). At least if the regular connection dropped, the system and proctor would still be available once connection resumed in a minute. Also, ProctorU had to complete an alternate monitoring process for two or three tests. Basically, they could use LogMeIn to monitor the screen (like normal), but the video conference wasn't able to work because the connection wasn't strong enough. I was patient with the proctor and eventually they suggested working with the IT team. They transferred the session and the IT group setup an AOL video chat session instead of the normal one (seems to use less bandwidth). Everyone was great considering the circumstances. Also, during the test I would get messaged via chat every 30 minutes to ask me to refresh the video since the connection had timed out.

Ultimately, the degree was worth it and TESU was awesome to deal with. Sanantone has fantastic degree plans on the wiki page, and I would highly suggest that you review them before making a decision. I can write out my degree plan later but I wanted to encourage you that it can be done (even with the difficulties that only occur in China).