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How Student Concentrations Are Changing at Harvard 2.0

Published October 24, 2020, Page Last Modified May 22, 2023

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In 2017, Edith Herwitz and Dianne Lee wrote an article in the Crimson called “How Student Concentrations Are Changing at Harvard” (a). I really liked it! It’s also very accessible.

They analyzed 13 of the 50 concentrations offered by Harvard. But it was hard to visually compare the different concentration areas (Arts and Humanities, Engineering and Applied Sciences, Sciences, and Social Sciences).

I scraped all available concentration data from the Harvard College Handbook to build a more full data visualization of student trends at Harvard from 2008-2019. It’s also interactive! You can find the raw data here. Color palettes were created using iWantHue.

Some departments at Harvard offer joint concentrations. For these disciplines (like Sociology in the image below), I included both kinds of joint concentrators (where the department serves as the primary field or the allied field of the joint concentration).

a table of statistics that lists the number of concentrators in Sociology vs Sociology + another field vs Another field + sociology from  2008 to 2019. For every year, the number of pure Sociology concentrators is about 10x-20x as large as the number of joint sociology cocentrators.

Major Concentration Categories (2018-2019)

Arts & HumanitiesEngineering & Applied...Engineering & Applied SciencesSciencesSocial SciencesSpecial Concentration...Special ConcentrationsStackedExpanded2008201020122014201620182019Year05001000150020002500300035004000450050005500Concentrators05547

Social Sciences (2018-2019)

Women, Gender, and Se...Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Study ofAfrican and African A...African and African American StudiesComparative Study of ...Comparative Study of ReligionEast Asian StudiesHistory and ScienceAnthropologySociologyHistoryPsychologySocial StudiesGovernmentEconomicsStackedExpanded2008201020122014201620182019Year0200400600800100012001400160018002000220024002600Concentrators02611

Sciences (2018-2019)

Human Developmental a...Human Developmental and Regenerative BiologyAstrophysicsStatisticsEarth and Planetary S...Earth and Planetary SciencesIntegrative BiologyChemistry and PhysicsChemical and Physical...Chemical and Physical BiologyEnvironmental Science...Environmental Science and Public PolicyChemistryPhysicsMathematicsHuman Evolutionary Bi...Human Evolutionary BiologyNeuroscienceMolecular and Cellula...Molecular and Cellular BiologyStackedExpanded2008201020122014201620182019Year0200400600800100012001400Concentrators01521

Engineering and Applied Sciences (2018-2019)

Mechanical Engineerin...Mechanical EngineeringBiomedical Engineerin...Biomedical EngineeringElectrical Engineerin...Electrical EngineeringEnvironmental Science...Environmental Science and EngineeringComputer ScienceApplied MathematicsEngineering SciencesStackedExpanded2008201020122014201620182019Year010020030040050060070080090010001100Concentrators01114

Arts and Humanities (2018-2019)

Theater, Dance, & Med...Theater, Dance, & MediaGermanic Languages an...Germanic Languages and LiteraturesSouth Asian StudiesSlavic Languages and ...Slavic Languages and LiteraturesFolklore and Mytholog...Folklore and MythologyNear Eastern Language...Near Eastern Languages and CivilizationsLinguisticsClassicsMusicRomance Languages and...Romance Languages and LiteraturesComparative Literatur...Comparative LiteraturePhilosophyHistory of Art and Ar...History of Art and ArchitectureArt, Film, and Visual...Art, Film, and Visual StudiesHistory and Literatur...History and LiteratureEnglishStackedExpanded2008201020122014201620182019Year0100200300400500600700800Concentrators0882

Citation

Zuckerman, Andrew, "How Student Concentrations Are Changing at Harvard 2.0", October 24, 2020, http://andzuck.com/blog/harvard-trends/

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