In this task, you are given a list of integers and an integer k. You need to find the kth smallest element in the input list and return that.

Input: Consider Input: [193, 150, 74, 50, 282, 231, 174, 238, 176, 67, 130, 113, 239, 165, 173, 162, 216, 136, 59, 177], k=12

Output: 174

Input: Consider Input: [178, 142, 146, 64, 29, 225, 162, 274, 62, 51, 177, 263, 80, 173, 179, 282, 58, 164, 172, 271], k=15

Output: 179

Input: Consider Input: [86, 198, 236, 176, 174, 224, 164, 37, 22, 88, 61, 191, 235, 181, 268, 275, 226, 78, 68, 270], k=11
Output: 181