Visualizing Data Final
For my dataviz final, I looked at occupational data in the United States. After coming across the topic earlier in the semester, I revisited the topic after finding myself thinking and researching about jobs and careers quite often, particularly in the past year. So I pulled up the 15-table Excel file that I’d downloaded three months back but never used and got to charting.
Is Traditional Education an Outdated System?
I’m starting off my data project with my most complex visualization. Consisting of over 1,000 rows of data, this visualization illustrates the relationship between formal education and annual wage. From the chart, it’s evident that having a bachelor’s degree may give you an advantage in having a higher paying job. It also shows that an associate’s degree or having some college experience without a degree doesn’t reap greater rewards than a high school diploma would. Also, it’s interesting to see that a master’s degree also isn’t particularly beneficial in terms of earning a higher salary. In fact, unless you are on the lower side of the bachelor’s degree spectrum (i.e. purple dots), having a master’s degree seems to have adverse effects on wages.
Similarly, this visualization looks at educational level and on-the-job training. The size of the circles represent duration of training needed (you can also refer to the key).
“So Where’s the Money’s At?”: Looking at Jobs of the Future
These two graphs (above and below) correlate with each other, so I thought to present them together. Both charts tell the story of occupational growth, the first showing the fastest growth (which highlights lots of newly created jobs), while the latter shows the most overall growth in general. I found it interesting (and unsurprising) that in both projections, STEM-related jobs—particularly in healthcare and engineering—showed the highest percentage of growth. In light of the pandemic, I think these trends were greatly accelerated, particularly in the healthcare industry.
