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PH.D. IN BIOSTATISTICS
Advisement and Doctoral Committees Advisement and Doctoral Committees After admission to a doctoral program in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, each student will be assigned an academic advisor from the faculty of the department. The assigned advisor will advise the student about prerequisite course work and courses needed to prepare the student for the Qualifying Examination and will generally work with the student until admission to candidacy. The student and advisor will develop a preliminary program of study. After admission to candidacy, i.e., passing the Qualifying or Doctoral Candidacy Examination, the Department Chair will appoint a Doctoral Advisory Committee. This committee should have three or more members, including the major professor and one faculty member of a cognate college or department, to guide the student’s work, offer advice on the program of study and to determine whether a foreign language is appropriate. The student’s program of study must be approved by this committee and filed prior to the beginning of the semester during which the student plans to graduate. This committee also may serve as the Doctoral Comprehensive Exam Committee, to prepare and evaluate the student’s Comprehensive Exam; however, the Comprehensive Exam Committee must have at least four members, including one faculty member from a cognate college or department. This committee may serve as the Dissertation Committee and Dissertation Examination Committee, although these committees may have different memberships. The dissertation committees are appointed by the Chair of the department no later than successful completion of the Comprehensive Examination. Selection is made in consultation with the student’s major professor and is subject to approval by the Dean of the Graduate School. The dissertation committees consist of at least four members, one of whom must be from a department outside the student’s major department. The committees are chaired by the student’s dissertation advisor. When the committees are selected and all faculty members have agreed to serve, the Chair of the Department should be notified to approve and formally appoint the committee(s) in writing. There is a Graduate School form that also must be completed for approval of the Committees by the Dean of the Graduate School. There are specific guidelines for approval of outside members of the doctoral committees who are not tenure-track graduate faculty at U.S.C. The Doctor of Philosophy program in Biostatistics prepares students, through quality lecture and practical experiences and other research opportunities, for involvement in teaching and independent and collaborative biostatistical research; and train researchers to teach and to pursue original research on analytical approaches to investigating health conditions, and to develop novel biostatistical approaches. The following objectives are premised upon having successfully met all of the objectives delineated above common to the M.P.H. and M.S.P.H. degrees.
Course work for the Ph.D. is predicated upon the applicant having college level courses in calculus and matrix algebra and solid preparation at the Master's level in biostatistics. Additional scientific background in the social or biological sciences is desirable. For applicants holding Master’s degrees in disciplines other than Biostatistics, preparatory course requirements will be set at the discretion of the faculty. As a minimum, applicants should have: a) completed the equivalent of l l/2 years of University level calculus, i.e. through multivariable calculus (equivalent courses at USC include MATH 141, MATH 142, MATH 241); b) completed an introductory course or its equivalent in matrix algebra, including matrix operations and solutions of matrix equations; c) completed a year of mathematical statistics, the equivalent of STAT 512 and STAT 513; d) have mastered the knowledge and skills taught in the following basic courses: EPID 701, BIOS 701, BIOS 753, and BIOS 757. Applicants without evidence of the above knowledge base will be expected to take the necessary basic courses immediately upon entry. The preparatory course requirements as specified by faculty in addition to the minimal 51 hours of doctoral requirements.
During the course of graduate study doctoral candidates will be expected to participate in research projects, organized instruction, and professional service activities of the department. There will be consulting and teaching experiences as part of the program of study. These are currently recorded as Independent Studies, EPID 890 or BIOS 890, with appropriate objectives, requirements and evaluation. The teaching experience must occur in a department core course for biostatistics (BIOS 701 or 757) and in an epidemiologic methods course (EPID 741) for epidemiology and be supervised by a full-time faculty. Qualifying (Candidacy) Examination The intent of the Qualifying Exam (Admission to Doctoral Candidacy Exam) is to measure potential for doctoral study and to assess the student’s basic technical and professional knowledge. It should be attempted as early as possible after completion of the Master’s program in the field, or after the first year of graduate study (or 18 hours for part-time students) for students entering with an advanced degree outside of Epidemiology or Biostatistics. This exam will be offered early in the spring semester and in August prior to the beginning of the fall semester classes. The Qualifying Examination must be completed at least one full academic year prior to the date the doctoral degree is awarded. A student who completes his/her master’s degree in Epidemiology or Biostatistics at USC and passed the Master’s Comprehensive Examination within the past three years may request waiver of at least part of the Qualifying Examination. This request will be evaluated on an individual basis. A student must register with his/her advisor’s approval to take the Qualifying Examination; the deadline for this registration is posted as soon as the examination date is set and must be at least three weeks prior to the examination date. If a student registers to take the Qualifying Examination and does not take it, this will count as one failed attempt unless the registration is canceled at least one week prior to the examination date. For Epidemiology students, the examination will focus on design and methodology issues and on content areas. Advanced material from EPID 701, EPID 741, BIOS 701 and BIOS 757 may be reflected on the examination. The exam may include reading a published manuscript (distributed prior to the exam) and responding to conceptual, design and methodological questions related to this publication or its subject matter. The examination can be written at a computer to allow use of a word processor; however, no other software can be used and no further research can be done (e.g., via e-mail or the Internet). For Biostatistics students, the examination will focus on the theory and methodologies presented in the various Biostatistics and Statistics courses, possibly including more advanced concepts from BIOS 701, BIOS 753, BIOS 757, and EPID 701. Students will be given a set of questions based on all the courses completed; each individual will be allowed to choose a subset of these questions to answer, based on what courses he/she completed. Because of calculations and formulas, writing the examination at a computer is not efficient; therefore Biostatistics students will complete the examination using pen/pencil and paper. Students will be allowed to use a calculator but not any statistical software. They will be given a sheet of relevant formulas. The Qualifying Examination, actually one exam for epidemiology and one exam for biostatistics, is prepared by a committee of at least three members of the Department faculty in that discipline. The committee evaluates the results and determines the outcome. The Qualifying Examination will be evaluated as a whole; the student will either pass or not pass the entire Examination. Students taking the Examination will be notified in writing of the results as soon as possible after faculty evaluation of the Examination. Faculty members are not to discuss exam results with any individual student until all students have received official notification. A debriefing session will be held after examination results are released to students. At this session, students are allowed to see their exams while faculty members review appropriate responses, but they will not be given their individual scores. The student may also meet with his/her faculty advisor to discuss performance on the exam. Each student is allowed two attempts at the Qualifying Examination. The second attempt should occur within one year of the first attempt, preferably the next semester. If a student does not pass the examination on the second attempt he/she is not allowed to continue in the program.
Comprehensive Examination The purpose of the Comprehensive Exam is to evaluate in-depth knowledge acquired by the student in the major area of concentration and in the cognate area. The exam is taken after the completion of doctoral course work and is scheduled for the individual student. The exam will contain written and oral components. It is prepared and administered by the Doctoral Comprehensive Exam committee consisting of the student’s major professor, two other members of the graduate faculty and an outside member appointed by the Department Chair and approved by the Dean of the Graduate School. The Doctoral Comprehensive Examination Committee is responsible for choosing the format of the Comprehensive Examination. The oral component of the exam should follow within one month of the written examination. The examination committee will prepare the oral component based on the student’s performance on the written component and on material not covered on the written component. As in the written component, any topic on the student’s program of study could be represented in the oral component. The committee evaluates both the written and oral components of the exam to determine whether the exam has been passed. Since the two components of the exam are evaluated together, the committee is not expected to give any response concerning the written component to the student before the oral component. If a student does not perform satisfactorily, both components must be repeated. The student is allowed two attempts to pass the examination. If a student does not pass the examination on the second attempt he/she is not allowed to continue in the program. The examination must be completed at least 60 days before the date of graduation. The intent of doctoral residency is to ensure that doctoral students benefit from and contribute to the complete spectrum of educational and professional opportunities provided by the graduate faculty of a comprehensive university. When establishing residency, the student should interact with faculty and peers by regularly attending courses, conferences, and seminars, and utilize the library and library facilities and resources needed to support excellence in graduate education. The granting of a doctoral degree by the University of South Carolina presupposes a minimum of three full years of graduate study (or equivalent) and a minimum of 30 graduate hours of study after admission to the doctoral program. The doctoral residency requirement may be satisfied only after admission to a doctoral degree program and must be fulfilled by enrollment in at least 18 graduate credit hours within a span of three consecutive semesters (excluding summers). Enrollment in a summer term is not required to maintain continuity, but credits earned during summer terms will count towards residency. In the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, dissertation hours (BIOS 899 or EPID 899) will not count toward the minimum requirement. Independent studies and seminars (BIOS 790, 845, and 890, EPID 790, 845, and 890) will normally not count toward the minimum residency requirements.
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