ConnorBrownHawkenProjects2021

On the last day I spent with Mr. Butler, I sat in on his vector calculus class and met with another one of his former students. The class was centered around the concept of arc length (finding the distance between any two points on a given vector or plane). While there is a fair amount of conceptual information that I do not understand because I haven't taken a high enough level calculus class, it is still fascinating to watch the thought process and reasoning used to solve problems. Later in the afternoon, I met with a man named Alex Cooke. He is one of Mr. Butler's former students who now works and teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He majored in math because he loves the subject. He is now working on using various programming sites to help make computer generated music sound real. All of his work is based around the probability of different patterns, scales, and key progressions in the music and how frequently they appear. One program that he worked on analyzes the...

On Monday June 7th I learned more calculus applications in Mr. Butler's Calculus 223 class. The majority of calculations I did in my calculus class this past year involved derivatives and integrals which Monday's class was centered around. The only difference is that in Calculus 223, the derivatives and integrals are far more advanced and involve vectors and planes in multiple dimensions. After class, I had two meetings with two of Mr. Butler's former students. The first woman I met with used her degree in Math to attend law school at the University of Chicago. Now she works in San Antonio doing corporate law but is planning on transferring to a different firm in Chicago where she will practice tax law. It was interesting to speak with her especially since my older since is at law school at the University of Chicago and is clerking at a firm in Dallas this summer between her second and third year of law school. We also enjoyed talking about our love for math. She had origin...

 My first two days with Mr. Butler have been very interesting. In the mornings I sit in on his Math 223 course where he has covered dot and cross products as well as planes. While the math is extremely complicated and takes concepts farther than anything I've done in high school, I really like the material. The class takes different calculus and algebra material and applies it to more than two dimensions into three, four, and five dimensions. I have also had the opportunity to speak with one of Mr. Butler's former students and one of his fellow professors at Case about their experiences studying mathematics and its applications in their work. Mr. Butler's former student had originally planned to major in computer science but realized that math was something he was more interested in switched majors. He spoke at length about his interest in number theory and data analytics. After college he joined the marines where he followed his passion to become a helicopter pilot. He sti...

On Wednesday the 27th I spent lunch with two executives from May River Capital, a private equity investment firm, at their NSL analytical location. On the way to the meeting, my mentor explained the purpose of the meeting. Building Integrated Services had done work for NSL analytical in the past and my mentor wanted to expand the scope of his work with them. Going in my mentor planned to pitch them on different ways Building Integrated Services could network throughout various May River Capital sites in Ohio and in other states as well. It was fascinating to watch my mentor transition the conversation from what Building Integrated Services could do for NSL analytical, to how they could service May River Capital as a whole. The entirety of the presentation centered around helping May River Capital become a "green" and sustainable company. By reducing energy and waste consumption, May River Capital would be a responsible company and save themselves a lot of money through variou...

 My favorite part of the time I have spent at Building Integrated Services has been going to lunch with my mentor and people he has introduced me to in the business field. On my first day at BIS, I went to lunch with Mr. Jordan, my mentor, and Mr. Lowry, and engineer at BIS. We spoke about Mr. Lowry's career and the different companies he had worked for before and including BIS. It was cool learning about the different jobs he had done that related to physics, mathematics, and engineering. I spoke with him about what he studied in college and how the different courses he took and helped him throughout his career. We also talked about his son who switched from a career in biology to a career in finance and is now one of the top executives at Charles Schwab. That drastic change exemplifies how quickly careers can change so you never know where you will end up. On Thursday I had lunch with my mentor and a man named Mr. Wolf. Mr. Wolf is the chief Executive of Red Diamond LTD. Red Diam...

In the first three days of my project I have learned a lot about business and law. Something that I particularly enjoyed working on was drafting a letter to a tenant in my mentor's building explaining the details of a lease renewal policy. I have always known a fair amount about law because both my parents are lawyers and my sister is in law school. Since they are all in law we talk about their work and school a fair amount while eating dinner, but none of them are in real estate so this was a completely new topic. I had to do a lot of research on how to write a lease renewal, what an escalation clause is, and how to format the proposal. It was also interesting to learn more about the law side of business. since law is involved in every aspect of the business world it is important to understand how different laws work and are interpreted. After finishing what I thought the lease renewal should look like, I was fascinating while editing the letter with my mentor and learning from hi...