Areas of Specialisation

Statistical Sciences (BCom and BBusSc)

The Statistical Sciences help people working in all areas of human endeavour to make sensible decisions.

The Statistical Sciences are underpinned by Mathematics and especially Probability Theory, the branch of Mathematics that quantifies uncertainty.

Uncertainty is the very thing that makes it difficult for us to take decisions! In business, some of the areas in which the Statistical Sciences make a key contribution have special names of their own. Operations Research and Management Science provide guidance on decisions of how to maximise profits with limited resources; Quality Management considers how to minimise losses due to flaws in products, from the design stage to production; Market Research helps assess the performance of existing and potential products in the marketplace; Econometrics helps to provide a theoretical understanding of the quantitative interrelationships in the economy; Financial Statistics helps, for example, investment analysts to decide what shares to buy for their clients; Production Management enables a manufacturing process to be organised to optimise the utilisation of people and machines; and Actuarial Science considers, amongst other aspects, concepts of risk in insurance.

An education in the Statistical Sciences provides an excellent platform to launch a career in business. The additional leverage that you get from such an education is the ability to take business decisions on an objective numerate basis, making use of all the available quantitative and probabilistic information.

The skills learnt during education in the UCT Department of Statistical Sciences are immediately applicable. It has been our experience that our students find it relatively easy to obtain jobs immediately after graduation, and that they are promoted rapidly into management positions. There is a worldwide shortage of statisticians, and the training received at UCT has universal application.

The statistics courses given by the UCT Department of Statistical Sciences to students from the Faculty of Commerce provide a blend of theory and applications of that theory to real-world problems in business. Computational aspects are stressed and there are opportunities to acquire skills in the use of statistical data analysis packages. The department aims to develop top-quality professionals in the various branches of the Statistical Sciences but also to ensure that graduates in other disciplines acquire the necessary quantitative and decision-making skills.

Visit the Statistical Science's Website