As you already know it has been months that almost the whole world is in lockdown due to the spread of Covid-19. In Italy, everything escalated quickly and after China, we were the first country to lockdown and stay home in quarantine. During these months there were some difficult moments, as none of us is used to live and spend so many hours at home, without having the possibility to go wherever and whenever we want. I feel lucky that when everything was closed down, I was in my hometown with my parents and not in Milan in my small flat in the middle of the city.
I’m the kind of person that has to be busy the whole time, I don’t like to waste much time doing nothing. So, in this situation, I immediately started to do all the things I always said I wanted to, but then postponed because of many others that were “urgent”. Firstly, I tied up and reorganised my room as I usually spend just some weekends it needed a clean-up. Then, I started to do the same at home, opening any kind of drawer or cupboard to clean to help my mum.
At the same time, I went back to one of my beloved old habits that I lost during these years of university: reading. Since I was a child, I always loved reading fantasy or classic books. It was an activity I loved especially in summer, but then university exams arrived, and my summers were all about studying. In general, I lost my willingness to read something after spending the whole day reading something. Thanks to quarantine I caught up on my reading list, on all those books that were on my shelves but that I have never read.
So, how to spend quarantine differently?
Again, I’m the kind of person that gets bored easily. I always need to add something new to my routine. That is why after having read many of the books I started to look for some online courses. I found so many that I’m totally crazy for them now. The best three free platforms are Coursera, Future Learn, and Hubspot Academy.
Coursera and Future Learn are two platforms that allow you to enroll in any kind of course – from brand management to psychology – offered by any university around the world. You will find Bocconi University, Yale, Oxford, London Business School, Columbia University, and many others. Generally, the courses are free, you have to submit assignments or complete some quizzes but there is no chance you would fail. If you would like to receive a certification you have to pay a small amount. Remember that everything depends on the course and the university!
At Coursera, I just finished a course in Management of Fashion and Luxury Companies, and I would like to start one – always offered by Bocconi University – on Corporate Sustainability and another one by the London Business School on Brand Management. On the other hand, at Future Learn I finished a course on fashion – Understanding Fashion: from Business to Culture – offered by Institut Français de la Mode and I would like to take one on Fashion and Sustainability by London College of Fashion part of UAL. Finally, I discovered the platform Hubspot Academy during my exchange in Washington DC. There I earn an Inbound Marketing certification thanks to my Digital Marketing class and I recently took one on Social Media. Here everything is free, you will find some courses with no certification and others with it but both options are free! Hubspot Academy is more centred on courses about marketing, sales, and customer relationship.
