What are /r/studyAbroad's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

A VPN basically allows you to surf the internet as if you were in another country. So while you're in China, you can redirect your internet traffic through a private network outside of China to get around various blocked websites like facebook, twitter, youtube, google, etc.

I always used ExpressVPN. It's less than $10 per month if you sign up for a year and I almost never had issues with connecting or speeds. You download the VPN to your computer and/or phone, and when you want to surf the internet unblocked, you open the program and select the closest server to your location (usually HK) and it connects you to servers in HK and you go about your business.

It's just a matter of personal preference if you want one or not. I lived in China for several years without one and didn't care that I couldn't access Twitter/Facebook/Youtube etc because I wasn't using any of them, but for other people it's difficult for them to live without those sites. When I did use the VPN, it was nice having access to The Pirate Bay and Netflix to watch movies etc. Netflix does work in China without a VPN, but it's not the same as the US Netflix. For awhile Netflix was blocking VPN use to keep people from accessing other countries movies/media (IE person in the US connecting to UK Netflix, or in this case people in China connecting to US Netflix), but i'm not in China now so I can't say if that is still happening.

https://www.schwab.com/public/schwab/banking_lending/checking_account

You have also create a Schwab brokerage account to link this checking account to, but there's no minimum balance, they refund international ATM fees, and you earn a bit of interest.

See if this helps answer your question. If not I would re-ask it on quora

https://www.quora.com/How-important-is-college-university-GPA-mark-grades-once-converted-to-German-grading-system-in-Germany-for-getting-jobs

Studying abroad is also a perfect time to travel. I definitely recommend taking advantage of it! To help you save some costs while traveling, I have a coupon for up to $40 FREE on your first Airbnb booking!

https://www.airbnb.com/c/aaront26

I don't really have any tips, but I'll be moving to Austria (just outside of Linz) in September, feel free to shoot me a message if you'd have any interest in a travel buddy at some point.

I did go to Mürren a few years ago on a trip, and my tip is: don't go when it's foggy and you can't see the mountains, haha.

I have been exploring Rome2Rio. I'm not sure how accurate it all is, but it seems like a cool resource.

> Budget airs are cheap, but maybe the local trains in Switerzland might be cheaper to get around, I don't know the answer to this, hopefully someone can tell me.

I've only traveled to Switzerland, but local trains aren't cheap! Everything in Switzerland is damn expensive! I think it would be cheaper to fly from Dublin into Europe.

This is a good website for approximating travel costs over different modes of transport: http://www.rome2rio.com/

Slightly related, but for people who can afford to decide at what time of year they buy theirs, I recommend checking out kayak.com/buzz. It gives you the dates of the cheapest tickets for any given location.

Haven't personally been to China, but we are currently using apps to translate things in Central America. I would suggest looking at bringing a smartphone or buying one when you get there and using an app (or apps) on your phone to translate. Here is one from google play store that has really good reviews. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.greenleaf.android.translator.enzh.b&hl=en

And here is one from the apple store with good reviews https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pleco-chinese-dictionary/id341922306?mt=8

Good luck with you study abroad trip!