The table illustrates which departments were the most preferred at an Australian university during 2009.
Overall, it is noticeable that the majority of female students were prone to study humanities and education. By contrast, although engineering and information technology were the least popular departments among female students, the large proportion of foreign students chose them.
Specifically, 72% of female students chose humanities and 68% selected education. However, the former included 12% those whose first language is not English, while the latter did 4% more. The departments had similar figures in those born outside Australia, at 20 and 23%, respectively. Even though science made up 52% females and 45% of those whose first language is not English, its proportion of non-Australian students was significantly higher than that of previous departments, at 31%.
With regard to other three departments, they had identical percentage of those born outside Australia, physics and information technology amounted to 56%, whereas engineering accounted for 48%. In terms of females, physics notably exceeded them, by nearly 3 times, making up 56%. While that of those whose first language is not English, information technology had 49%, compared to 38% of physics and 42% of engineering.