S-Peers hereinafter referred to as ku akran is founded on academic roots of “Academic and Life Skills 100” course which was initiated in 2010 as a mandatory freshman course. Academic and Life Skills (ALIS) is a student–focused program aiming to support Koç University students to be  more successful and efficient during their university lives, and to empower them in basic skills which they may need both in their professional and personal lives. These courses are planned around experiential exercises and they aim to help the students become more self-aware and actualize their own potentials to the maximum extent during their university education and beyond while maintaining effective interaction with the outside world. The courses create opportunities for students to develop the skills like self-awareness, goal-setting, communication, relationship management, self-expression in front of an audience that they may need to achieve their potential in all domains of life

Experiential learning exercises that are used in ALIS courses are diversified through time.  In 2014, Koç University Office of Learning and Teaching initiated a project to increase experiential learning by using Metalog education tools to impact students’ learning positively. This specific project contributed to the development of ALIS courses greatly. It was designed in line with the mission of ALIS course to support and develop the practices that are used in ALIS course. The experiences revealed that Metalog education tools are providing positive results in experiential learning activities.

The mission of ALIS course, developing the life skills of young adults with the experiential learning model has enabled the emergence of ku akran’s “Listen to Your Peer” project.  Students who completed the course later volunteered to form a community in 2015 in order to expand knowledge and skills they gained in this course. ku akran believes in the significance of absorbing basic life skills in the college (undergraduate) years by experiencing and learning from each other through experiential learning. They advocate that strengthening their knowledge and skills and sharing them with their peers at  other universities is essential in creating a more liable and considerate society in the future.

ku akran members are conducting experiential exercises in lectures, orientation programs and extracurricular activities. The most important feature of their activities is the fact that all the experiential exercises are managed by the students who are members of ku akran. The exercises aim at enabling peer learning. In these activities, young adults who completed task together in a limited time with an experiential learning tool and simulate the outcomes of the exercise to real life, share their experiences and learn by hearing from each other.

Foremost difference of ku akran from similar youth communities is creating a sustainable learning network among young adults about life skills and enable the society to gain from this experience/learning in long term.