TKS Session 2: Understanding TKS

This was week 2 of TKS! This session we really got deep into the program and what to expect for the whole year, from the schedule, the resources, the focus, the challenges, etc. I’ll give you guys a little taste of it in this post.

My intention for this session was to start to build relationships with everyone in cohort and get to know them better compared to last meeting. The mindset we covered was unconventional thinking, which is the idea of taking the different path and following your gut, rather than going the safe path and not taking risks to possibly make our world better.

Let’s start with the schedule. For this first month or so, we will be doing explore modules. As many as I can. We are going to explore everything so that we can and choose a focus that we are passionate about so that we can work on it to the fullest. Then throughout the year we will work on different parts of the focus, and that depends on the type of focus you have.

There are two types of focuses: Technical and Scientific.

A technical focus follows this process: Learn, Replicate, Replicate, and Create

A scientific focus follows this process: Learn, Apply, Review, Idea

While doing this, we have 2 challenges throughout the year, where we work with real companies to help them solve real problems they are facing. Challenges are useful if you finish them, because then you can get the feedback and possibly gain more value from it than you expected.

Then, at the end of this year, we have the TKS showcase, where we share what we’ve done this year.

One thing in TKS that we do are braindates, which are meetings that we can do that focus on different subjects. There are three different types of braindates:

Meet: This is great when you are trying to get to know someone and just make a new connection.

Growth: This braindate focuses on something that you or someone else wants to improve on. Maybe you get suggestions from someone, or maybe you help someone else, or maybe you both grow together.

Focus: This will focus on a specific topic, whether that be your actual focus, someone else’s focus, or a topic someone or both of you are interested in. This is great to just chat about it and exchange ideas.

The different types of braindates will vary on the amount of structure. Meets are very chill, while growth or focus braindates are more structured with a full agenda to discuss the topic at hand.

Another cool thing in TKS is the mentoring and 1-1 coaching we have access to. Our director, Azar, will be our coach for the next ten months. He is there to help us with anything that we need and to coach us through a process we may be struggling with. But, being part of TKS, you also get access to mentors from companies or who are specialized in their field to help you with your focus. I definitely want to take advantage of all this!

In this session, we also did a group activity where we got into groups with people who are the same personality type as you, and those who are different personality types. I’m ENTJ-A, but I talked to people all over the personality spectrum. It’s interesting to hear about how people act or react differently compared to you based on how their personality different to yours.

Lastly, we created a social contract. What that consists of is a list of rules or expectations for what everyone in this cohort should be doing. Some of that includes being 5 minutes early, be accountable on projects, be motivated to learn with everyone, and provide useful feedback (meaning go and expand on your feedback and give suggestions on how people can improve).

This was another get-to-know TKS session and an opportunity to plan out our sessions a bit more. Next week, we will start the whole process and start working on different projects!

I’m definitely excited to see where these next ten months go, and I’m all in!