Project 02 – Infographic Response

Infographic Analysis

The first half of the infographic (which can be found right here) consists of a series of three images which display the proportions of four major ethnicities in the United States in three subsets of the population. In this series of images, the four top ethnicities (White, Black, Hispanic, Asian) reported in the U.S. Census are identified by color, and then those that do not fall into these categories are lumped into the “Other” category.

The first subset is actually the entire set, that is, it is representative of the U.S. population at large. This one is more difficult to analyze because of the way that the data is sampled by the U.S. Census Bureau. They do not consider Hispanic it’s own category, as it is not a race, just an ethnicity. So the 15.1% of Hispanics are actually sampled from the rest of the population (this is why the image is drawn on a scale to 115 rather than 100 as is noted at the bottom of the image). One thing that we can safely say though is that the vast majority of the country is white (almost 80%) as is expected. The other ethnicities then are smaller portions of the population. The data here should not surprise anyone who looks at it.

Next is the Notre Dame demographics image. The proportion of the white population actually is quite close to the proportion of the U.S. population. Considering that the 15.1% of the U.S. Hispanic population could consist of a lot of the same people in the white category, it might not be that far away from exactly the same. The black population, however, does drop significantly below what it should be according the U.S. demographics. It is about one third of what it should be. Asians, however, are very lightly over represented in the ND population compared to that of the U.S. population. Notre Dame also has a much larger portion of students who do not identify with any one of the top four reported ethnicities in the U.S. Census. This is likely due to the number of students from other countries.

Finally, the third image is representative of the CSE Department’s student population here at Notre Dame over the last 6 years (including the graduating class of 2013 up to the projected graduating class of 2018). In this group, the white proportion is about the same as it is in the Notre Dame student body at large, though it is a little bit smaller. Black students have an almost identical slice of the CSE department compared to the student body. The “Other “population is also pretty close to its ND counterpart. The only group that definitely stands out is the Asian population, comprising 10.2% of the CSE department compared to its 5.7% of the student body.

The second half of the image conveys just one statistic, the ratio of men to women students in the CSE department here at Notre Dame over the last 6 years. The rounded number is 75 to 25 in favor of men, but as it says in the caption the exact proportions are 74.85% and 25.15%. It is worth noting that in the supporting data, the trend over those six years was upward, where in 2013 only 22.22% of the CSE students were female but in 2018 it was 28.57%. So this statistic seems as if it is only going to even out more as time goes on.

Personal Response

Parts of this image actually surprised me greatly. The U.S. Map was pretty much what I expected it to be, but the Notre Dame logo showed me something I did not expect. Comparing it to the USA population, the white population here at ND is actually about what it should be proportional to U.S. census data. People tend to say that Notre Dame has no racial diversity and that it’s mostly rich white people who go here, but this image says otherwise.

One group that definitely is underrepresented, however, is the black population. Its about one third of what it should be, which does somewhat legitimize people’s claims about a lack of racial diversity. This also reaffirms my belief that the reason for a lack of minorities in the tech industry is not just related to problems within tech. The problems that push minorities (in this case African Americans) away from tech would have to appear farther down the pipeline as people say. If we can’t get enough minorities into a position where they can get into good schools in the first place, then they will never have the choice between pursuing the tech industry over a different career path. Adding further evidence to this is how the percentage of black students in the CSE department is only 0.02% away from the percentage of black students in the entire Notre Dame student body.

The ratio of men to women in the CSE department also surprised me to a small degree. In my experience here as a Computer Science student. I feel like I am surrounded by almost all men. This isn’t a complaint, its just a report on what I feel like I am seeing around me. There are very few women in the CSE classes that I have taken. So when I found that the ratio is actually just 3 to 1, I was a little surprised that there are that many women. It also makes me slightly suspicious that perhaps I have been a part of a culture that feeds into women in the tech industry being ignored. Have I been contributing to the thought In the future I will make sure that I do not ignore women in the workplace and five them their proper attention.

I don’t think that the ND CSE department needs to strive to improve the diversity of its subset of the student body. I do believe, however, that it must continue making steps to ensure that it is treating people from every ethnic background with the respect that they deserve as to not discourage people from entering a major (and eventually an industry) that they would otherwise like to be a part of. The costs will be minimal. All that is required of the CSE faculty is to keep an open mind and ear to what the students have to say about diversity in their department; maybe they could even send out a survey to gather the students thoughts more proactively. But this is a trivial task in the big picture. having a respect for diversity will go along way in promoting the best parts of each individual person, and result in a better world. So just like in any other place, diversity must be properly respected in CSE.