A university has data on its undergraduate students and their majors by grade level (Freshman,...

To visualize the path students take as they change majors across different grade levels, a Sankey Diagram is highly effective. This type of visualization illustrates the flow and quantity between different stages or categories:

Sankey Diagram: It allows for a visual representation of students' movements between majors over time. Each flow's thickness is proportional to the number of students moving from one major to another, giving a clear, immediate visual cue of major popularity and student migration patterns.

To create a Sankey Diagram in Tableau, you typically need to prepare the data specifically for this type of chart. The data must include source (starting major), target (ending major), and the value (number of students). It often requires custom calculations and data reshaping to get the data in a format that a Sankey can use.

Once the data is prepared, you can use a combination of calculated fields, path binning, and line charts to simulate the flow effect in Tableau. External plugins or web-based integrations might also be employed for more direct implementations.

References

Sankey Diagrams are not natively supported in Tableau but can be implemented through creative use of data preparation and calculations, as suggested in advanced Tableau user communities and demonstrated in various Tableau public galleries.