Diversity of International Students in UAEU
Concept:
Several of my close friends are enrolled at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), recognized as one of the top universities in the UAE and the Gulf region. Among them, one is an international student who frequently shares her challenges as a minority among predominantly local students, as well as her positive experiences. These conversations piqued my curiosity about the actual number of international students at UAEU. Consequently, I decided to create a visualization to gain insight into the diversity of the international student population, given the institution’s predominantly local student body. The visualization displays the total number of international undergraduate students in UAEU from Fall of 2019 to Spring 2023.
Code:
The following code represents the segment I find most fulfilling because it required significant adjustments and modifications, along with related code segments, to display only the country names and the respective number of students, while excluding dates and gender. Initially, there were issues with text changes and overlapping.
function startChangingText() {
setInterval(() => {
// Change the current country index and redraw
countryIndex = (countryIndex + 1) % countryData.length;
}, 2000); // Change the index every 2 seconds (adjust as needed)
}
function displayChangingText() {
// Display the changing text at the top of the screen
textStyle(BOLD);
let currentCountry = countryData[countryIndex];
let countryText = `${currentCountry.country} - Total Students: ${currentCountry.numStudents}`;
fill(0); // Text color
textSize(18);
textAlign(CENTER, TOP);
text(countryText, width / 2, 10); // Display text at the top
}
Reflection:
I underestimated the complexity of this assignment as it turned out to be quite time-consuming. I struggled with finding appropriate data that would be easy to work with which took me a lot of time to figure out. This assignment made me realize that achieving the desired outcome would require substantial effort on my part. I initially had high hopes of creating something more advanced since I’m eager to learn about data visualization and related aspects of big data. However, I’m pleased to have gained valuable experience in loading CSV files and employing techniques like “split,” which will be beneficial if I choose to delve deeper into data visualization in the near future.
References:
https://www.freepik.com/vectors/white-world-map
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_UQdH3Zt2s
https://p5js.org/examples/advanced-data-load-saved-table.html