Number of Students Per Dept at UMW in Fall 2019 vs. Fall 2020
Dataset Source
I found the data for number of students per dept on the Grade Distribution Report – Institutional Analysis and Effectiveness from the 19-20 and 20-21 reports.
Charts
Data File
Here is a link to my spreadsheet where I created the pivot tables and charts: Data Project Spreadsheet. Before I copied the pivot table and chart over to one spreadsheet this is where I organized the Fall 2020 data: Data Project Spreadsheet 2.
Data Trend Analysis
I picked this data set because I wanted to focus on the number of students in each department before and after COVID-19 drastically changed the school system. COVID-19 was in its prime in early 2020 and I believe it led to a decline in the number of students enrolling in college classes. To my surprise it was not as drastic of a change as I thought it would be. The departments that declined in students the most were: Historic Preservation, Music, Modern Language and Literature, Business, and Theatre and Dance. There were some departments that rose in students, but it only ranged from about 5-15. The departments like Music and Theatre and Dance are not surprising that they dropped students because it requires them to interact and be in person. When analyzing this data, I thought for sure that the sciences would be affected more because of the in-person lab classes. Although, I do believe that the school systems especially at the university level did a great job at adapting to the situation at hand to ensure that students could continue their education. Overall, there was a decline of 2,835 students between the Fall 2019 and Fall 2020 semesters.
How Did I Find and Organize This Data?
I worked with the Grade Distribution Report listed on UMWs website. I was able to download both the 19-20 and 20-21 school years reports as an excel sheet. I then formatted it into a table and analyzed the table to determine which information I wanted to focus on. I deleted some rows and the other sheets that I knew I would not be using. I then created a pivot table in a new worksheet, so that I could just focus on the rows for departments and number of students. When it listed departments it gave a row that is called blank, so I went back to my other sheet and deleted those rows that did not list a department and refreshed my pivot table. I then took the information from the pivot table and had Excel generate a chart for me. I did this on both school years reports and copy and pasted the pivot table and chart onto one sheet to consolidate it all and compare.
Happy Learning!