2022, Turning 14, and Bruxism

My December and January in the most summarized way possible...

Feb 08, 2023

Hi everyone :) Welcome back to my newsletter! So, December and January were interesting months…to say the least. Let’s take a dive into my crazyyyy life

I’m Aryanna Gangani, a 14 y/o girl at The Knowledge Society who’s excited to share insane opportunities and experiences with you guys! I’m also keen on making an impact on the world, especially with a new technology I fell in love with - BCIs.

I took some time for myself in December, so this newsletter is about my transition from 2022 to 2023. A little different than my last one, I know, but I’ve realised the power of taking time for yourself.

Introspection

Constantly being stressed out, constantly being busy, and never having any time can really get to you. Don’t get me wrong, being busy is amazing. When I don’t have anything to do I end up spending my time on social media or doing something unproductive. But being so busy with school, extracurriculars and high school applications is the polar opposite - which has basically been my life for the past 4 years. Yep, you heard that right. I’ve been working hard every year and summer since I was 10 years old to try and get into high school.

These last 2 months, I was very intentional about taking small and big breaks. When I’d been sitting down at my computer for more than 2 hours, I made sure to take a little stretch break. After long hours, I made sure to walk up & down the stairs, watch something I love for a couple minutes. And it sounds stupid, but it actually works. I found I was more productive, and my work quality had gone up. This little change made SUCH a big difference in my day-to-day life, it’s insane 🤯.

Anyways, onto December!

December :)

From late November to early December, through The Knowledge Society, I took part in my first challenge.

Okay, so what’s a challenge? And why is that so important anyways?

Consulting for a Fortune 500 company

Yep, that’s right. Me, a 14 year old middle school student, consulted for none other than Walmart.

Walmart, the company that had claimed the top spot for the ninth consecutive year on the Fortune Global 500 list. And makes $1.56 billion everyday.

This past month, my team and I got the amazing opportunity to work with Walmart Bluelabs; Walmart’s innovation team. Our job was to come up with a digital touchpoint that could be interpreted into Walmart. We made a standalone deck, showcasing our solution, the implementation timeline, our prototype, and how this would actually benefit Walmart. To back up, a standalone deck is a deck where all the information is already displayed on it - this didn’t hit me until I realised we didn’t have to present…

Shoutout to Maahi Raut, Keerthana Srinivasan, Areen Charania, Sierra Hajee, and Maliga Sivalingam for an amazing 3 weeks and just being an amazing team to work with.

Special shoutout to our amazing PM - Maahi Raut!

Check out our deck here:

Our presentation!

A few 🔑 takeaways:

Have a Project Manager

Make sure your PM sets the rules, helps the group have strong team dynamics, and manages the group’s time wisely.

Have strong team dynamics.

Choose a team that you’ll work effectively with, but make sure you get to know each other. Be comfortable around each other. Be comfortable giving and receiving real feedback. Make sure everyone knows what their role is. But make sure rules/benefits/consequences are set in place right from the start. Sounds weird, right? If you love your group so much, why would there be consequences? If people don’t show up. If they don’t pull their weight.

For example, if someone in my team didn’t show up to 2 meetings without letting us know beforehand, they would be kicked out of the group. Sounds harsh, right? But it works.

One way to do this without seeming too harsh is by setting up funny challenges as consequences. For example, if someone didn’t complete what they were supposed to, have them send a video of them doing 20 pushups and send it on the groupchat. That way, people might be embarrassed, and may not want to have to do it. That works too - everyone’s priorities are different.

This is the most important: Manage your time wisely.

Ya, okay, everyone says this, but seriously. Time management sounds really intimidating at first, but coming from firsthand experience - do it. My team ended up doing more than half of our work during the last week than the first two. Yep, we crammed in more than we could do in that last week of our challenge. It takes time, but do it. Block out time. Make sure you’re doing as much work the first two weeks as you are the last. Because cramming never has a good effect. One of my team members - HUGE shout out to Keerthana Srivinasan - stayed home from school the day our pitch was due, and worked on the aesthetic of the slides. She’s so awesome, and I’m so glad I was in a group with such an amazing individual!

But make sure not to cram - it sucks and stresses everyone out.

Loved my team - and I’m looking forward to potentially working with them again!

December Break

And then it was finally time for December break! Toronto had the most wonderful snowstorm that ended up delaying our flight by 2.5 hours…how fun! Luckily we got out of Toronto before the storm got crazy, but I 10/10 would not recommend it. I had an awesome time. Except for the fact that my little cousins got sick, so my sister and I got sick which wasn’t fun. I was coughing all day - literally. How can you blame them though…they’re so cute! But at least we’d be going to Mexico!

Actually we wouldn’t. Because of the storm, flights were getting delayed, bags were getting lost, people were waiting in the airport for 10+ hours…so my family made a decision to not go. It sucked, but Sunwing offered to let us use it again sometime - so we’re going in March instead!

My amazing break!

2023!!

But on a separate note - HAPPY NEW YEAR 🥳. 2022 was beyond amazing, but I’m excited for what 2023 has in-store. I made some New Year's Resolutions, but didn’t stick to many of them. Only those few. That I committed to sticking to in public - in front of my family.

People don’t usually stick to their New Year’s Resolutions. Unless they commit to it and have people hold them accountable - something that we emphasise in Velocity. I committed to my family that I would go to the gym 2 days a week (I’m moving slowly, because I don’t want to go from 1 day to 5 days so fast.) And so far, I’ve kept it. But I committed to myself that I would read 1 book a month. And I’ve already broken that. January is done, and I swear to god I’m 25 pages into the book I started at the beginning of the month. Not the best...

Pro tip: publicly commit to your New Years goals - you’re more likely to accomplish them.

But again, work at your own pace. Now back to the break.

My actual December break lasted about 6 days.

And then it was grind/work time.

January :)

Brain Computer Interfaces

If you read my last newsletter, I explained how I chose BCIs - brain computer interfaces - as my Focus at The Knowledge Society. And in my “What’s Next” section, I promised to write more articles and make more BCI projects.

And that’s exactly what I did!

So, for the second week of my December break, I worked on my Replicates. Basically, you’re meant to replicate a project that an alumni has already done, and maybe put your own spin on it. Honestly, it was insanely hard to start when I didn’t actually have all the steps out in front of me. This was part of the “figure-it-out” mindset. Try to do all you can without having to ask others - do what you can/know. For these projects, I got an amazing Muse headband, and it’s super cool and extremely useful. Excited to make more projects with it :)

But in the end, I did it, and I’m really proud of my articles:

How My Brainwaves Can Prevent Bruxism

This one is about a possible solution to teeth grinding - go check it out!

This Dino Can Jump Without A Space Bar?

As a matter of fact, my article about Bruxism got published in the ScienMathic Discoveries page on Medium.

Go check it out here!

Now I’m on the Create stage. So, you guessed it, I have to create my own BCI project. I’ve got a solid idea, and I’m so excited to show you what I do - stay tuned for that :)

Velocity

So, like I mentioned in my last newsletter, getting kicked out isn’t a bad thing - you’re supposed to get kicked out. So I did…

In Velocity, the requirement was to complete the 1st Replicate by January 7th. But since I had been sick for the first week of December break, I wasn’t able to get as much done as I had wanted, leaving me with close to nothing by January 6th. So I got kicked out. But that only pushed me to work harder, and fight my way back into Velocity, with hard work. So, I got both my Replicates (the ones above) done before the end of January. And now I’m back in :) Now, there are only 7 people, since the other - 30 I think - got kicked out for not completing the requirements.

And not to brag - but I’m the only person in my cohort who’s in Velocity! I feel so good that I completed all that I had to to be in Velocity :)

I’m 14!!

Yep! You heard that right - I’m 14 now :)

Oldest in my class, and still holding that record…but I’m 1 year older than any other grade 8 in my school. I don’t know, I still feel 13? There isn’t that much of a difference. Except for the fact that I’m getting more breakouts…my style is changing…I’m always moody…and I’m always on my phone. Is that normal? Am I having a midlife crisis…?

Anyways, I had the most awesome time with my family, and I even got Cloud Runners - I literally feel like I’m walking on a cloud, hence the name.

But 14 is awesome - and I’m excited for what I’m going to accomplish!

Focus Hackathon

In mid January, TKS students participated in the Focus Hackathon. It was a global event, so teams were able to be from around the world. Remember how I said my Focus is BCIs? So basically, we partner up with people who are in the same/a similar focus as us. Here was our challenge:

My team found a way to help paralyzed patients gain the ability to move again - using BCIs and connectomics.

Shoutout to my team: Vidhi Jaju, Devika Menon, Niqat Karovalia, and Radhika Sinha.

Special shoutout to Radhika for being an awesome PM!

Upcoming Case Study

Next week, as part of TKS, we’ll be partaking in a case study. A Harvard business case study. So just to put that into perspective, I’m a 14 year old grade 8 student doing a university level case study…isn’t that crazy? I’ll update you on what happened, and I’m sure it’ll be exciting. I’m going to go read 2 papers after this - wish me luck!

Upcoming Challenge

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be participating in another challenge. Like consulting for a Fortune 500 Company. The first challenge was a way to get used to the feeling of a challenge, but now we know what to do, and what lessons to take away, we’re ready for an even more epic challenge month. I’ll keep you updated on that too - promise!

High schools

So, if you read my previous article, I applied to a lot of high schools. I did 2 interviews this month, and I’m extremely nervous. The results come out before the end of February - so stay tuned :)

🎧 On loop 🎧

I LOVE music, remember? So here are my looped songs:

Hope you like them :)

TL;DR

Consulting for a Fortune 500 company
December break/2023
Brain Computer Interfaces/Velocity
I’m 14!
Focus Hackathon
Upcoming Case study/challenge
High schools

🎯What’s Next?

Making my own BCI project!

I’m going to be working on this for the majority of February, March and April, so make sure to stay tuned!

Continuing with Velocity

Trying my best to not get kicked out…I mean finish what I’m supposed to do to not get kicked out 🤞.

Consuming more content

As I said before, I’m not doing as well as I had hoped with reading - but I’m sticking to my promise that I WILL finish 1 book before the end of February.

3…2…1…and it’s already 2023? How’d that happen so fast? Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my December/January update. If you liked this newsletter, or would like to give me any feedback, feel free to reach out to my LinkedIn and be sure to follow me on Medium as well to check out my previous articles. If you would like to stay updated on my monthly goals/accomplishments, be sure to subscribe to my newsletters here - and make sure to share!

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