Career Path - Understand the Relation of Majors to Occupations Through Interactive Visualization

Description

To prepare students for the large range of different occupations, number of departments and majors in a university are expanding. In Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus, there are more than 100 departments across disciplines ranging from engineering, science, health and human science, technology, education, agriculture, management, pharmacy, to liberal arts. The wide options of majors make it difficult for students to make their decisions for their major and their future occupations. Many students have to change their major during the middle of college years, which will cause a big loss on money and time.

Based on a survey data collected from Purdue and a national survey database, we developed an interactive visualization system to help high school students and college freshmen explore the connections between majors and occupations. Through this visualization, we tried to help students find out answers for the following questions:

  • What major should I choose?
  • What occupation should I pursue?
  • What majors can help me pursue this occupation?
  • What occupation can I apply for from this major?
  • What is the required skill set for a particular major/occupation?
  • What kinds of skills do a major help me develop?
  • What majors/occupations are good to fit my KSA (knowledge, skills, and abilities)?
  • What occupations are good to fit my temperament/preferred work characteristics?
  • What are the long-term employment prospects for this major (earnings, unemployment, and flexibility to get many jobs)?
  • What knowledge and skills are complementary to a particular major and helpful for landing specific jobs?

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Career Path - Understand the Relation of Majors to Occupations Through Interactive Visualization

To prepare students for the large range of different occupations, number of departments and majors in a university are expanding. In Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus, there are more than 100 departments across disciplines ranging from engineering, science, health and human science, technology, education, agriculture, management, pharmacy, to liberal arts. The wide options of majors make it difficult for students to make their decisions for their major and their future occupations. Many students have to change their major during the middle of college years, which will cause a big loss on money and time.

Based on a survey data collected from Purdue and a national survey database, we developed an interactive visualization system to help high school students and college freshmen explore the connections between majors and occupations. Through this visualization, we tried to help students find out answers for the following questions:

  • What major should I choose?
  • What occupation should I pursue?
  • What majors can help me pursue this occupation?
  • What occupation can I apply for from this major?
  • What is the required skill set for a particular major/occupation?
  • What kinds of skills do a major help me develop?
  • What majors/occupations are good to fit my KSA (knowledge, skills, and abilities)?
  • What occupations are good to fit my temperament/preferred work characteristics?
  • What are the long-term employment prospects for this major (earnings, unemployment, and flexibility to get many jobs)?
  • What knowledge and skills are complementary to a particular major and helpful for landing specific jobs?