Biostatistics

The MSc Biostatistics is a master’s degree in biostatistics offered by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. Biostatistics is the application of statistical methods to biological and medical data, such as clinical trials, epidemiology, genetics, and ecology.

The MSC Biostatistics at University of Cape Town is a coursework and minor dissertation degree that requires a minimum of 90 NQF credits.

Key Facts

The curriculum comprises four compulsory core courses, elective courses and a minor dissertation.

Students will choose elective courses to bring the total number of coursework credits to a minimum of 90 NQF credits. Students may choose to take electives from other departments with prior approval of the program Convener.

Students who do not hold a qualification in Statistics at the Honours level will be required to take pre-courses (STA5014Z) before being allowed to register for the degree. These could include Introductory Calculus, Matrix Methods, Introductory Inference and R-programming.

Progression Rules:

Students are required to pass modules adding up to 90 credits to qualify for the course work component of the degree. All core courses must be passed. Students are allowed to repeat a failed module once. Students should pass at least 3 modules in their first year of registration to be allowed to continue with the degree. Students may not progress to elective modules unless they have passed at least 3 core modules. By the end of their second year of registration, students should have passed at least 4 modules to be allowed to continue with the degree. Students may take a maximum of three years to complete their coursework requirement. Students may register for the dissertation components of the degree if they have passed 3 modules. They may, however, not submit their dissertations for examination before they have passed all required modules

Course Content

• Design of Clinical Trials

• Longitudinal Data Analytics

• Multivariate Statistics

• Survival Analysis
• Calculus