The Circular Economy MOOC course provided by EdX, summing up the most important parts and approaches in CE was overall a beneficial chapter in our MUEC Master’s curriculum. Luckily, not all notions tackled during this course were new to me, but I appreciated the approach and the structure of the course that was easy to follow and helped to organize my knowledge. The most interesting part of the course was the ‘Thinking in Systems’ chapter, where the importance of demand stabilization and increase of recycling rates were pointed out by the case study of aluminium. I will most certainly add the EdX platform in my PLE as a learning tool and source of information, especially for the purpose of life-long learning experience after the end of my studies.
Edita’s MOOC I: Personal Branding
The Personal Branding MOOC course provided by Coursera, served me as a well-structured guide for defining my personal brand by summing up my aspirations and goals. Starting with the Myers-Briggs personality test followed by understanding of the importance of authenticity while creating my mission statement, I have been able to organize the goals for my personal brand. A summary of pros and cons of selected social media validated the vision I have had while working on the PLE assignment during previous classes. This course also included a chapter about digital privacy directly linked to the DIP activity, and only highlighted the importance of taking control over my digital footprint. Finally, I was able to establish my personal brand and I am now following the step-by-step procedure of implying this personal brand in my social media and overall digital presence. I will also consider adding Coursera to my PLE by researching courses that might interest me in my personal, academic and professional future.
About Edita Dvorakova
Edita’s personal learning environment
While preparing the structure for my initial PLE, I decided to organize the tools I usually use in 8 categories, chronologically and clockwise, with the optional preliminary inspiration/guidance step.
Today, a lot of social media platforms can serve as tools for inspiration, organization, learning, creation, sharing and communication purposes at the same time. I use several resources such as Pinterest, Instagram, Linkedin and Quora in multiple ways. Thus, to classify them for this PLE, I placed them in a category reflecting on the most frequent personal use.
My target PLE has not drastically changed from the initial one, since I really enjoy the resources that I already use. Nevertheless, I have reorganized the categories and added Twitter as a new source of information that I am currently working on setting up.
After seeing the presentations of my peers, I wrote down a short list with platforms/tools (Mendeley, Spark, Flaticon) that I would like to try out and maybe implement in my future PLE if they can further simplify my life.
Thank you, dear reader, for your time and all the best,
Edita Dvorakova
Edita’s digital identity plan
Creating my DIP was for me the most important aspect during this course. Not only I have been planning to do so since some time now, but also now more importantly than ever before applying for a PhD position I would like to have a full image of my existing digital identity and transform it into the one that I believe is presentable online. This exercise (although it scared me at first), made me step by step do a research about my digital footprint and finally, after 23 years of my life, made me realize how CRUCIAL it is to have as much ‘privacy’ on the internet as you can. Despite the fact that this task was meant specifically for academic and professional purposes, it has also helped me to develop on a personal level.
A big thanks to all my current fellow students for creating such a positive and supporting learning environment and the best of luck to all future MUEC students,
Edita Dvorakova
About Edita Dvorakova
Edita’s future career (and life) reflection
Is your life today the way you imagined it would be 2, 5, 10 or 15 years ago?
The realization, that the evolution of my preferences, knowledge and surrounding opportunities is a never ending process and takes place every single day, caused two things.
- I have no I idea what exactly I want to do.
- I fell in love with not knowing it.
See, it all starts when they first ask you, as a few years old kid, ‘So what do you want to do when you grow up? To be a doctor? A president? An astronaut?’. So naturally, you try to define your future self, but based on what? Based on the only version of the world as you know it in that very particular moment.
I am done defining myself. I have struggled and stressed about this definition for so long and it has brought me nothing but confusion and the feeling of having no purpose.
Today I follow my beliefs and passions in regard with my personal values and I am deeply enjoying the process. My future professional life? It is already happening – I am learning (often by trial and error), I am building connections, I am discovering new perspectives, I am absorbing the (mostly scientific) knowledge that I am so thirsty for and I finally feel purposeful.
I may find another learning program such as a PhD, I may find a job in a company that will suit me, I may build a company to create a job that will suit me, but my only specific goal is to be a part of the positive change in the world and nothing more.
As my beloved Alan Watts has once said, a completely predictable future is already the past.
I can seem a little lost, since I cannot define my future. But as long as I never stop learning, never stop helping people and helping to educate people, never stop sticking with my values and never give up on being curious and kind, then I will gladly be labelled as lost but fulfilled.
Sincerely yours,
Edita Dvorakova
Fossil fuels do not hurt the environment.🔊
Dearest reader,
Now that I have caught your attention, let me introduce myself.
My name is Edita Dvořáková, I am 23 years old and come from Plzeň, Czechia.
I have spent my whole ‘adult’ life in France, where I studied chemistry at the Université de Bordeaux, and later enrolled in the AMIR Master’s programme that I am currently finishing at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
Thanks to my studies and learning opportunities that I have been through, I have realized the following:
- No, fossil fuels actually do not hurt the environment, but we and our consumption of fossil fuels do.
- You should always employ critical thinking and try to find an opportunity to contribute to a brighter future instead of blindly accept pessimistic predictions for our generation and those to come.
- You must be the change you want to see in the world.
- It is not too late to change our collective mindset and minimize our impact.
With compassion and solution-seeking mindset (and a LITTLE BIT of science!), society can get better and once again be in a symbiotic relationship with this planet that we call our home.
With every cell of my body, I would like to contribute to this change and to the transformation of the current linear economy towards the circular and sustainable one. Although alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.
Meet me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/edita-dvorakova/ and let’s put our knowledge and skills together to create great things while we still can 🌍
Best wishes until be speak again,
Edita Dvorakova
PS: If you would like to start helping the environment today and save our endangered marine life🌊 and my beloved sharks 🦈, visit:
- https://seashepherd.org,
- https://sharkstewards.org or,
- https://www.4ocean.com.
