Are Students More T-Shaped?Julia Duros
Senior Project, 2013Computer Science and Economics
Advisors: Chris Fernandes, Tomas Dvorak
T vs. I-Shaped Individuals
Depth
Depth
Breadth
Question
Have students taken a broader range of courses now than in the past?
Course Pages
Course Schedules Page (public)
Course Roster Page (private)
Steps to Gather Data
Union College course roster data scraped• Wrote Python script:
1. Saved all pages as HTML2. Put each page’s data into CSV file
Course roster Program Data file
Manipulating the Data
Import to StataOrganize, manipulate, and analyze data
Description of Data
For each student:• Identifier• Major• Enrollment information
Department Term and Year
Size of Data
28,194 course roster pages
4,113 students168,370 course enrollments
Courses 2001-2012• Students in Class Years 2004-2012
Breadth
Breadth of education is one dimension of interdisciplinarity
Measured by number of unique departments represented on transcript
Results
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20120
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Average Number of Unique Departments Taken by Students
Class Year
Nu
mb
er
of
Dep
art
men
ts
Why the increase?
Possible factors: Number of departments/programs Major requirements Total courses taken
Results
2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 20120
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Departments/Programs
Year
Nu
mb
er
of
Dep
art
men
ts
Results
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20120
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Average Number of Unique Departments Taken by Students
All de-partments
Departments in Existence 2001-2012
Class Year
Nu
mb
er
of
Dep
art
men
ts
Results
Biology Computer Science
English Political Science
All Majors0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Average Number of Unique Departments Taken by Students, 2004-2012
Major
Nu
mb
er
of
Dep
art
men
ts
Results
Academic Year Biology Comp. Sci. English Poli. Sci.
Average for all majors
2003-2004 4 3 1 1 2.9
2004-2005 4 3 1 1 3.0
2005-2006 5 3 1 1 3.0
2006-2007 5 3 1 1 3.0
2007-2008 5 3 1 1 3.0
2008-2009 5 3 1 1 3.0
2009-2010 5 3 1 1 3.1
2010-2011 6 3 1 1 3.1
2011-2012 6 3 1 1 3.1
Number of Required Departments for Specified Major
Results
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 201220%
22%
24%
26%
28%
30%
32%
34%
36%
38%
40%
Average Ratio of Number of Unique Departments to Total Number of Courses Taken
Class Year
Rati
o
Note: only using departments in existence 2001-2012
Conclusion
Students have taken broader range of courses more T-shaped◦More departments to choose from◦More courses in total
Future Work
Why the increase in number of total courses?
Courses taken for GenEdGrades
Questions?