This is overkill since this is testing the signup and signin functionality. All you have to do is create a user with `UserFactory.create(username="name", password="somepassword")` in `setUp()`. And then log them in with `self.client.login()`. 

https://github.com/edx/edx-platform/blob/master/lms/djangoapps/verify_student/tests/test_views.py#L61-L62
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.3/topics/testing/#django.test.client.Client.login