How to live in China without a Bachelor's degree

[LinZhenPu]

How can an ordinary every-day person who does not have much money but wants to make a scene change and move to China ASAP but does not have a Bachelor's degree pull it off without working illegally as an English teacher without a Z visa?

 

This is how you do it.

 

1) Study Chinese in your home country or anywhere in the world to a HSK3 level.

 

2) Pass the HSK3 with a high score.

 

3) Get into China on a one academic year Confucius Institute scholarship. Study your butt off, make lots of Chinese friends, sample lots of different Chinese dishes, travel and see China during semester breaks. Have a great time!

 

4) Pass HSK5 with a high score, or pass HSK6 if you're really good ;)

 

5) Get accepted into the 3rd year of a 4 year Chinese Language for Foreigners degree. You will probably be able to get a CSC scholarship or Chinese Local Government scholarship to do this.

 

6) Do a visa run. Perhaps not required, if you go to the same university as you went to for the one academic year!

 

7) Continue to study your butt off, graduate with a Bachelor's degree.

 

Congratulations, now you have what you need to get a Z visa.

 

The next choice is to either continue your studies and get a Master of Teaching Chinese as a Secondary Language, for which you are likely to be able to get another full Hanban scholarship. Or find a job.

 

For me, if I went through all the above, I would probably continue to the MTCSOL degree because I feel I would much rather be a Chinese teacher than an English teacher.

 

Or perhaps a Master of Confucian Philosophy degree...  

[onebir]

"5) Get accepted into the 3rd year of a 4 year Chinese Language for Foreigners degree. You will probably be able to get a CSC scholarship or Chinese Local Government scholarship to do this."

 

Didn't realise this was possible! Got  a list of these?

 

Edit: oops

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/40354-universities-that-lets-you-graduate-in-two-year-if-you-have-hsk5/#comment-303539

[LinZhenPu]

Hopefully that list is not exhaustive. Will look more into it on Monday!

[onebir]

That'll be handy. One way to avoid going through huge lists of results for "Chinese Language" on sites like CUCAS might be to work from SICAS' results:

 

http://www.sicas.cn/DegreeListSearch.aspx (Humanities -> Teaching Chinese Language as a Foreign Language &/Chinese Language and Literature)

 

These give the HSK prerequisite in the summary results - presumably suitable courses will ask for "HSK 0"

 

Doesn't look like there are many - maybe other more exhaustive sites also give HSK reqts in a similiar convenient form though?

[Chris Two Times]

@LinZhenPu, I think this could be a good plan actually. "Or perhaps a Master of Confucian Philosophy degree..." -->  Go for it! Heck, why not?

 

@onebir, many thanks for posting that link to the thread about other universities that do this. Very useful.

 

I looked into this idea meself earlier as well. Here are my previous posts about this with direct links to the university websites.

 

This is an attractive option and I thank LinZhenPu for bringing this to the attention of the forums once again.

 

 

1) Xiamen University

my post at the top of page 5:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/35661-xiamen-university/page-5

 

2) Guangdong University of Foreign Studies

my post here:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/50758-guangdong-university-of-foreign-studies/

 

 

Warm regards,

Chris Two Times

[anonymoose]

The plan is OK, but there's a simpler way. Just go directly for the 4 year degree from the outset. You get to go to China straight away rather than faffing around in your own country trying to get to HSK 3 first.

[LinZhenPu]

@anonymoose, But you can't get the scholarship for the 4 year degree if you are over 20 years old, and most people won't have the funds to pay the tuition and living expenses for 4 whole years.

[Jagna]

@LinZhenPu You can receive Chinese Government Scholarship for undergrad program if you're less than 25. According to the CGS website the scholarship can cover up to 7 years (1-2 years for preparation and 4-5 years for your degree). So *technically* you can apply if you're 24 and live and study for free until you're 31 

[LinZhenPu]

Ah. Didn't know that. Well, I'm 25 already

Isn't the CGS less likely to get than the Hanban scholarship?

[NotChinese]

I got a CSC full degree scholarship at 25. I was 26 when I landed in China to start the course.

 

However It was obtained via my university, at which I was a mature student.

 

The real kick in the teeth is that I had a full degree scholarship, with a year of Chinese tuition leading onto any degree I wanted, all paid for, but...  I had to return back to the UK after just one year, to finish my expensive, not-as-culturally-exciting degree back home!

[LinZhenPu]

@NotChinese

Wow. Why did you have to finish the degree first, couldn't you have finished it after completing a degree in China?

Were you able to go back to China on the scholarship after you finished your UK degree?

[NotChinese]

In the end my scholarship was just for one year. I had the chance to do the full degree but when applying (while still in the UK) I ticked the box saying 'one year'.

 

My degree subject is physics which is pretty complex so it's a risk to take time out halfway through. It's been difficult enough returning to it after just one year away!!! I think the maximum gap I'd be allowed is two years away, after that my uni would have struck me off.

 

In hindsight I could, and should, have quit my UK degree and done the full degree in China. I mean, I could have just started again from scratch, learned Chinese and got a physics degree in China, all for free! But there was a lot of confusion about all this during my application so I just played it safe and took the one year, which is still much, much better than nothing! I still feel very fortunate to have got what I did.