What I've been up to + 2025 Goals

It has been five months since I last posted, but this time, I have a solid reason (excuse) : I've been busy being a double major student - again (that is, after doing another Master's Degree during my 2nd year of PhD).

Like all decisions, this one was hard to make, even harder than my second Master's Degree in Ville, Architecture, Patrimoine (roughly translated into : City, Architecture and Heritage) that can always be justified by my long-term goal of working in a museum at some point in my life.

This time, I started a Bachelor's Degree in (Digital) Marketing. Something I swore I'd never be doing a few years back, but judging from my willingness to work outside of academia and my absolute need to work in France, I don't really have much choice and I decided, probably for the first time in my life, to go for something that I am not 100% excited about but "kind of" like.

I skipped first year - as it is the norm at this point - and started this degree in my now-city (that is not Paris) with classmates 9 years or even 10 years younger than me, in September 2024.

As much as I am dreading back-to-school after Christmas break, I have to say that this has been a rewarding degree. It has been tough, for sure : to be in a completely different field and with people who are so different (basically, people who don't fangirl on authors from the 19th century), while trying to finish my PhD thesis by spring... there's too much to unpack that I can probably make a separate post on it. But I learned so much on and even got slightly better at German, given that I have business German as part of my program (For anyone who come to France to study : choose your first langue vivante - or "living language" wisely, because you are likely to have to stick to it for further studies ! Luckily for me, I absolutely love German and hope to work near the French-German boarder if I can). I even made a whole new website as part of a project that will be marked next semester, that you can check out here (it's in French though) : https://sites.google.com/view/mlodieknowsit/qui-suis-je

So, what plans do I have for 2025 ?

This year, I have decided to keep it simple, yet "fancy".

Simple because the goals are simple : to graduate and start looking for a job, to work on my mental and physical health, and to make progress on my target languages (don't worry, I have the detailed and "SMART" version in my personal notes). I am at the point in my life when I want to start working, and it feels good.

Fancy because, well, I just spent two hours making this :

2025 vision board

With this vision board I am quite proud of, I wish you, who have been patient enough to check out this long-overdue update, a happy and healthy year of 2025.

Love,

Mélodie

P.S. Actually, I've got a Tiktok account now (who is she ?!) :

https://www.tiktok.com/@melodieknowsit

Tiktok : @melodieknowsit