Before you start

Passport, and usually a residence permit or valid visa
A Nanjing address for broadband, or a campus network account
An unlocked handset
A payment method for top-ups

Step-by-step

1
Get the SIM on day one
Any China Mobile, Unicom or Telecom shop issues one against your passport under real-name registration. Prepaid data plans are cheap. Carriers run heavily discounted student plans on campus at the start of term — worth asking about if you are eligible.
In personWho: YouDay 1
2
Register it in your own name, not the institution's
A number registered to an employer or a university takes your bank verification and payment wallets with it when you leave. One extra shop visit removes the whole problem.
In personWho: You
3
Understand how the campus network differs from a home connection
University networks in China run their own authentication, their own bandwidth policies and sometimes their own filtering, and they are frequently better for reaching academic resources and worse for everything else. If you will work from home, do not assume the campus arrangement follows you.
OnlineWho: You
4
Order home broadband and check the building first
Chinese fibre is fast and cheap; installation depends on the building's wiring and landlord cooperation. Taking over an existing live line is far quicker than a new install — ask at the viewing.
In personWho: You1–2 weeks
5
Sort out access to critical accounts before you fly
Email, password manager, authenticator, banking. Set the arrangement up and test it while you still have unrestricted access. For researchers, check specifically how you will reach the journals, preprint servers and collaboration tools your work depends on.
OnlineWho: YouBefore departure
6
Install the apps the city runs on
WeChat for social and much that is official, Alipay for payments and city services, Amap or Baidu Maps for navigation, DiDi for taxis, Meituan and Ele.me for delivery. Google Maps does not work in mainland China.
Mobile appWho: YouWeek 1

Documents you’ll need

Passport
Residence permit or valid visa
Nanjing address for broadband, or campus network credentials
Payment method for top-ups

Things most newcomers don’t know

A campus connection and a home connection behave differently, and academics get caught by the gap.

Chinese university networks run their own authentication and policies, and typically have institutional access to academic databases and journals that a home broadband line does not. Researchers who assume the campus arrangement extends to their flat discover otherwise on the first evening they try to work from home. Find out during induction how remote access to the library's subscriptions works — it is usually solvable and rarely explained unprompted.

Source: community-reported

The Chinese phone number is the root of your identity, and losing it is expensive.

Real-name registration binds the number to your passport, and from there it becomes the verification anchor for your bank, Alipay, WeChat Pay, hospital bookings, delivery apps and often your building's door access. Re-establishing it after a lapse means redoing the registration and re-verifying every downstream service. This matters especially to students who leave for a long summer and let a prepaid number lapse.

Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology

Do not let a university register your SIM for you.

Institutions sometimes arrange numbers for incoming students and staff in bulk, registered to the institution rather than the individual. It is convenient at registration and a real problem at graduation or resignation, because the number carries your bank verification and payment wallets. Insist on registration to your own passport, even if it costs you an extra afternoon in the first week.

Source: community-reported

WeChat is how a university city actually organises itself.

Class groups, department announcements, landlord contact, sports clubs, second-hand furniture and the entire foreign community here run through WeChat groups. With a student-heavy population that turns over annually, the groups are the institutional memory. Set the account up before arrival if possible — verification sometimes needs an existing user to vouch for you.

Source: community-reported