The Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree provides a graduate with the specific discipline knowledge, together with a range of related skills, essential for the workplace, or to allow continuation to postgraduate study. Curricula are designed to provide adequate foundations and depth in the chosen majors, but also to attain generic skills such as numeracy, problem solving, and computer and communication skills which are necessary to function as a graduate.

The Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree is a qualification that requires the completion of nine full year courses (or the equivalent in half courses) leading to two separate majors. This is completed over 3 or more years. Typically, 4 or 5 courses are taken at first-year level, 2 or 3 at second-year level and 2 at third-year level. Unlike school, it is not necessary to do all first-year courses during the first year at university. These courses include compulsory courses required for each major, as well as elective courses (which are not prescribed but chosen out of interest to fulfil the degree requirement of completing nine full courses) All students are required to do a mathematics course. For some majors, a statistics course is also required. (Details of the courses required for each major can be found in the Science Faculty Handbook )

Majors offered

The Faculty offers a choice from 20 different majors, listed below. Detailed curricula leading to these majors and the rules for the BSc degree offered by the Faculty of Science can be found in the Science Faculty Handbook.

Majors offered by the Science Faculty are as follows:
•    Applied Mathematics
•    Applied Statistics
•    Archaeology
•    Astrophysics
•    Biochemistry
•    Biology
•    Chemistry
•    Computer Science

• Computer Engineering *
• ​​​​​​​Business Computing *

•    Environmental & Geographical Science
•    Genetics
•    Geology
•    Human Anatomy & Physiology
•    Marine Biology
•    Mathematics
•    Mathematical Statistics
•    Ocean & Atmosphere Science
•    Physics
•    Quantitative Biology

*These majors must be taken concurrently with a major in Computer Science
A range of electives may be taken from other Faculties. Refer to the Science Faculty Handbook (Additional Information section at the back of the book) to determine what courses are allowed, and the rules governing external courses.

The Department of Human Biology brings together several medical scientific and clinical academic disciplines, divided into six Divisions, namely:

• Division of Biomedical Engineering
• Division of Cell Biology
• Division of Clinical Anatomy and Biological Anthropology
• Division of Physiological Sciences

Undergraduate Teaching

The department’s undergraduate teaching contributes to the

• MBChB programme (in Years 1-3 and the Intervention Programme)
• Health and Rehabilitation (1st and 2nd year Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and Communication Science students)
• Faculty of Science (years 2 and 3 of the BSc programme majoring in Human Anatomy and Physiology)
• Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment (a one-semester introductory course to medical engineering).

Postgraduate Programmes

Human Biology has the largest cohort of postgraduate students in the Faculty of Health Sciences, participating in a wide range of programmes in niche areas such as:

• applied anatomy
• biokinetics
• biological anthropology
• biomedical engineering
• cell biology
• exercise science
• health care technology management
• nutrition and dietetics
• physiology
• sports and exercise medicine
• sport management (offered together with the Faculty of Commerce)
• sports physiotherapy (offered together with the Division of Physiotherapy in the Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences)

Facilities & Programmes

We host a number of facilities and programmes unique to the University of Cape Town

• Confocal & Light Microscopy Imaging Facility specialising in advanced fluorescence image acquisition and image analysis
• Anatomy Museum an important hub of teaching and learning in all of our programmes
• Body Donor Programme for training and research
• Histology laboratories for the preparation of tissues and slides for teaching and for research is widely used by several research programmes within the department, Faculty & other Faculties of UCT and external institutions.