Generally, I’m a math-hater.

Something about using numbers for journalism excites me, though. I love looking at trends most of all.

Currently, I’m looking at enrollment numbers for majors within the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. The college is the biggest on the Norman campus, easily. There are thousands more students in it than any other college.

What I’m doing is looking at a breakdown of individual undergraduate students enrolled within the college by department, from 2008 to 2012 during the fall semester. These departments range from Native American Studies to Political Science to Zoology to Psychology and more.

So far, it’s been fascinating looking at these numbers. Here’s a few first glance takeaways:

• History of Science has seen the largest increase since it’s foundation at 166 percent. The major was established last year with 6 undergraduates, and has increased to 16 undergraduates this year. These aren’t huge numbers, but 166 percent is still a mighty increase.
• The Women’s and Gender studies has seen the second largest increase in five years at 72 percent
• Economics has decreased the most, losing 40 percent of its undergraduates since 2008.
• The college as a whole has seen a 12 percent increase in students since 2008, but from 2011 to 2012 it lost 181 students—a 2.56 percent decrease from last year.
• Biology was established as a major for the 2012 academic year and currently has 46 undergraduates enrolled. There isn’t currently another year to compare it to.
• African and African American Studies has experienced no increase or decrease. There were 22 undergraduates in 2008 as well as 2009.

This week I’ll be visiting and calling administrators for the majors that have seen the biggest changes to see why they think this might be happening. I might attribute the increase of Women’s and Gender Studies students as cultural change, but I’m unsure of why economics enrollment would be decreasing.

I’m going to explore making a chart to go with these, but I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to go about it. Journalist’s adventure coming soon!

I’m excited to gain some insight about these numbers.