Course preparation resources
Table of Contents
- Course Structure and schedule
- Mandatory Training
- How to spend your preparation time
- Setting up your computer
- Reading list
- Advice from previous students
- Frequently Asked Questions
Planning your year
What will my timetable look like?
The MSc Epidemiology is an intensive full time programme delivered over a 12 month period. In general, taught/supervised classes will take place between 9.30am and 5pm from Monday to Friday. However, the exact times may vary depending on the module and the amount of pre-reading and pre-sessional exercises students need to carry out. More details regarding the timetable will be sent to you in September.
Below are provisional Imperial College terms dates for 2024-25. Please note that some assessments submission and examination dates fall outside regular College term dates.
College Term dates
| Autumn term: | 28 September 2024 - 13 December 2024 |
| Spring term: | 6 January 2025 - 21 March 2025 |
| Summer term: | 26 April 2025 - 27 June 2025 |
Examination dates
| Exam period 1: | 6 - 10 January 2025 |
| Exam period 2: | 7 - 16 April 2025 |
Summer Project dates
| Start: | 5 May 2025 |
| Background presentation: | (Provisional) Week of 2 June 2025 |
| Final presentation date: | (Provisional) Week of 1 Septmber 2025 |
Closure dates
| Christmas/New year: | 23 December 2024 - 1 January 2025 (College reopens on 2 January 2025) |
| Easter Holiday: | 17 April 2025 - 22 April 2025 (College reopens on 23 April 2025) |
| Early May Bank Holiday: | 5 May 2025 |
| Spring Bank Holiday: | 26 May 2025 |
| Summer Bank Holiday: | 25 August 2025 |
Again, please note that as a one year postgraduate course, assessment submissions may take place outside the main term / exam periods.
Mandatory Training
You are invited to complete the courses below, which you can only enrol on once you are enrolled as an Imperial student. You are encouraged to complete them before teaching on the MSc Epidemiology commences in October.
Data Protection Awareness
The conduct of most epidemiology and public health research requires collection, storage, and processing of personal data. As a controller for most of the personal data it processes, Imperial College London is committed to full compliance with the applicable data protection legislation, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
As you may handle personal and sensitive personal data through teaching and research activities, you are required to complete a Data Protection Awareness e-learning course, which includes best practice and scenarios for maintaining data security, an overview of the data protection regulations, compliance, rights and enforcement.
You can self-enrol on this course after you are enrolled as an Imperial student, and are encouraged to complete it before the course commences. Once you have enrolled with Imperial, you can access and complete the Data Protection Awareness course on Blackboard Learn. Instructions for course enrolment are outlined on Imperial Essentials
Plagiarism Awareness
As an Imperial College London student, you will be required to use and share academic information ethically, with academic integrity and in accordance with Imperial College’s Examination & Assessment: Academic Integrity Policy.
To support compliance with this policy, you are required to complete a Plagiarism Awareness Course, developed by the Graduate School in conjunction with the Library. It aims to equip all Imperial postgraduate students with a working knowledge of the concept of plagiarism and how to avoid it. You should be auto-enrolled to this course; instructions for manual enrolment are also on the College website.
Attributes and Aspirations (Recommended)
Attributes and Aspirations is an interactive, practical, flexible online short course designed to support you make decisions on your professional future. It was created based on research into the skills employers and PhD programmes look for, so you can be sure they are the skills that you really need. AA offers topics like teamworking, decision making, communication, as well as career planning and interview preparation skills. You can enrol and complete them when you need them on a timeline that works for you! Visit the Skills Map to explore what skills you can practice and where to find them.
By enrolling on AA
- You can develop key skills that will help with your Master’s study and in your future.
- You will access content that designed specifically for Imperial College Postgraduate students in your faculty.
- You will receive a certificate for each module you complete, but there are no formal assessments on the course.
How to spend your preparation time
Statistics
The MSc Epidemiology programme requires a solid understanding of statistical concepts, some of which may take time to digest. While you’ll complete a compulsory Introduction to Statistical Thinking and Data Analysis module in the Autumn term (term one), it is recommended that you brush up on your statistical skills before the course commences. We provide optional maths refreshers in term one, which include linear algebra, but if you haven’t studied this before then some pre-course revision may well be beneficial.
For a revision of statistical concepts we highly recommend you begin your preparation by following the first few weeks of the Imperial Introduction to Statistics for Public Health course. This is particularly useful if you have not done any basic maths or statistics in some time.
If you still have time (after the recommended coding prep and computer set-up in the sections further below), here are some other useful statistics and linear algebra resources.
Coursera courses
- Statistics with R
- Biostatistics in Public Health: Coursera
- Mathematics for Machine Learning: Linear Algebra
Youtube Channels
Khan Academy
Learning to code or improving your coding skills
The MSc Epidemiology course primarily uses R. If you don’t have R already installed on your computer, please do so before the course commences, using the instructions provided on this webpage in the section Setting up your computer. There are numerous free or cheap resources online for getting started, some of which are recommended below in Free R resources.
Once you have set up R, the course team highly recommends you complete the below courses on DataCamp, before induction week. To access the DataCamp courses, you need to use your Imperial email account.
If you are already familiar with R or you are a beginner and have completed the above, here are some more advanced courses from DataCamp you may want to complete:
- Introduction to the Tidyverse
- Data Manipulation with dplyr
- Joining Data with dplyr
- Cleaning Data in R
- Introduction to Data Visualization with ggplot2
Free R resources
Please note the resources below are free but some may require payment if you want to obtain a certificate.
Free R Tutorial - R Basics - R Programming Language Introduction
Excellent intro to R, starting from the very beginning. This will also walk you through the setup process.
Free R Tutorial - R, ggplot, and Simple Linear Regression
A gentle introduction to using R for data manipulation, visualisation, statistics and simple ML.
A really thorough guide to using R for statistics
A great curated list of resources for R programming
Research Methods
Work to be completed ahead of the first teaching session of the Research Methods Module
Throughout the Research Methods module we are going to be exploring the key aspects related to designing and conducting a research project in public health or epidemiology. This is to prepare you, in the short term, for your dissertation in the summer. In the long term, crafting a good research question is essential to undertaking any research after your Masters or to be able to critically appraise published research projects.
One of the most critical stages of any research project comes right at the beginning: developing a well-defined research question. Your research question will affect many other stages and decisions you make such as your study design, methodology and analysis – ultimately, the quality and validity of your work.
The first week of the research methods module is focused on how to develop a good research question. A mantra that we shall come back to time and again is that your research question should be Clear, Focused and Feasible! This means the following:
*Your research question should be clear. To ensure this, the terms you invoke in your research question should be well defined.
*Your research question should be focused. Your research question should not be too broad otherwise you will have practical difficulties articulating the methods implied by your question, in a specific and meaningful manner.
*Your research question should be feasible. Your research question should be amenable to be answered with the resources and time you have available.
However, it is important to note all researchers ‘iterate’ (or modify repeatedly) their research question – this is natural and all part of the process. No research question is perfect the first time it is written. Through reading the literature and having discussions with others, you go through an iteration process where you make it clearer, more focused and more feasible.
During the first teaching session of Research Methods, you will need to bring a draft research question to class
There is no expectation for this to be perfect because the plan is to work on these during the session to iterate and improve them. Prior to the first session, you will need to identify a research gap in a topic you are interested in and develop this into a research question. Please note, this is not necessarily the research question for your final summer research project so please come with an example of a topic idea and research question for the exercise –
Don’t spend too much time contemplating whether or not this is an area you will end up working on– we just need you to come in with an example to the session
First stage is to identify a topic within public health and epidemiology that you are interested in. Such ideas can come from personal experience, incidental news you have come across or more intimate knowledge of a particular field of study. Below are links to the departments within the School of Public Health (SPH), any of which you can explore for research ideas. You do not have to choose from SPH research topics. However, you may benefit from doing so as some students have completed their summer projects using research questions developed on this module, supported by SPH supervisors with expertise in that topic.
MSc Epidemiology students are encouraged to consider ongoing research activities and potential supervisors mainly from the Departments of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Environmental Research Group, as their work is best aligned to your learnign objectives.
SPH department websites detailing research activities
Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Once you have identified a topic, you should then try and define it further and narrow down, as it is likely to be too broad at first. For example, you may be broadly interested in the topic of adherence to antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV. You could then ask yourself:
Why am I interested in this topic? What is it about antiretroviral adherence that sparked my interest? Am I interested in a particular setting (e.g. HIV clinics in South Africa or London)? Am I interested in a particular group (e.g. pregnant women)? What aspect of adherence am I interested in (e.g. barriers or facilitators, methods of measuring adherence)?
Additionally, it is important to ask yourself:
What do I currently know about this topic? Am I aware of any research gaps that I can contribute to filling? Do I know someone or am I aware of someone at Imperial or in an external institution I can discuss my initial ideas with?
Based upon these questions, you should be able to start narrowing your research topic down. Through a series of adaptations, you may be able to develop an initial research question.
During the Research Methods Module you will explore the background literature to your research topic/research question in more detail so you may identify the research gaps more closely; thus, it is likely your research question will adapt and change. However, it is important to start with a research topic you are interested in.
Further guidance on how you can refine your research question will be circulated via email ahead of the start of term
Computer set-up
You will be using R extensively throughout the year. R is a widely used programming language for statistical analyses and machine learning (see https://www.r-project.org/about.html) and can be aided by the use of Rstudio (highly recommended), which is a graphical user interface for R. To use both of these in the course, you will need to install R, Rstudio and some R packages on your personal laptop. Please follow the instructions below to complete the installation prior to course commencement. We will have a dedicated session during induction week to help troubleshoot any problems you encounter with the installation.
Installing R
First download and install R (version 4.4.1) from the CRAN.
For Mac users
Download R-4.4.1 for Windows. The R-project for statistical computing.
For Windows users
The Comprehensive R Archive Network
For Linux users
Installing RStudio
R Studio is an integrated development environment for R. You can download the Open Source R Studio Desktop from this link:
Install required packages in R
There are two main repositories of R packages (sets of built-in R functions): the CRAN (Comprehensive R Archive Network) and Bioconductor. Once both R and R Studio are installed, you can open R Studio and install the required packages by running the following code:
```r
### First we create a function that checks if you have the package installed
### and, if you don't have it, installs the package
checkInstallPackage <- function(package.list){
new.packages <- package.list[!(package.list %in% installed.packages()[,"Package"])]
print(paste(length(new.packages), "packages require installation. Installing now"))
if(length(new.packages)) install.packages(new.packages)
}
### Now we have a function, we can pass a list of the packages we will be
### using on the course into the function, and install them all in one go
# first we create the list of packages
package.list <- c("e1071", "optparse", "tidyverse", "mvoutlier", "pcaMethods",
"imputeLCMD", "lme4", "RColorBrewer", "VennDiagram", "glmnet", "omics","stringr",
"utils","dplyr", "ROCR", "ggplot2", "ggfortify", "survival", "igraph", "corpcor",
"ppcor", "abind", "parallel")
# now we run the function
checkInstallPackage(package.list)
# this may take some time to run #
### Installing some packages from Bioconductor ###
# some of the packages we use are only available on bioconductor and these need
# to be installed separately. Run this code to install these packages.
# You may receive a prompt "Update all/some/none? [a/s/n]:" –
# if you see this, type "a" and press enter
if (!"pcaMethods" %in% rownames(installed.packages())) {
if (!requireNamespace("BiocManager",
quietly = TRUE))
install.packages("BiocManager")
BiocManager::install("pcaMethods")
}
if (!"impute" %in% rownames(installed.packages())) {
if (!requireNamespace("BiocManager",
quietly = TRUE))
install.packages("BiocManager")
BiocManager::install("impute")
}
```
Once you have run all these lines of code, please make sure that all the packages have been properly installed. They should all be listed in the “Packages” tab (bottom right hand quadrant of R Studio):
Term 1 reading list
Statistics
- Essential Medical Statistics. Kirkwood B and Sterne J (2003) (2nd ed). Blackwell Science Ltd. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Essential-Medical-Statistics-Essentials-Kirkwood/dp/0865428719 Chapters 2–5 will support what you learn in the term 1 statistics module.
- An Introduction to Medical Statistics. Bland M (2015) (4th ed). Oxford University Press. An alternative excellent standard text book. This includes multiple choice and other questions at the end of chapters, which may be useful for revision purposes. http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~mb55/intro/introcon.htm (accessed 25 July 2017) contains useful additional material. Chapters 4–7 will support what you learn in the term 1 statistics module.
R programming
- Hands-on programming with R, Garrett Grolemund. https://rstudio-education.github.io/hopr/index.html
Advice from previous students
We asked previous students what advice they would give their past selves before starting the course. Their responses are below.
Before starting the course
- My advice would be: if you are a biologist and have not done maths in a while, take a linear algebra course as a MOOC maybe. If you have questions, ask! Never be afraid of being curious!
- Don’t be disheartened when you don’t have a clue what’s happening in R or python if you have zero prior coding experience - it’s a steep learning curve but you’ll pick it up. Coding is the sort of thing where there’s a certain level of understanding beyond which everything just seems very understandable, and before that level it just seems super overwhelming. Just the ability to understand the syntax in R and the different nuances etc gives you the ability to understand and search every problem on stack overflow. You don’t need to know a load of functions off by heart.
- If possible, do some of the data camp courses BEFORE starting the MSc
- Take an intro linear algebra course and don’t just rely on the math refreshers
Throughout the course
- Organise and document everything during projects: scripts, data, notes etc. You will definitely revisit old code and old notes
- Be proactive, ask question and use the resources that are made available to you (the people around you and the lecturers)
- Keep your notes and code organised, I kept referring back to past tutorials in the project, and having a filing system from the beginning of the project made this so much quicker.
- Don’t think you’re the only one who doesn’t understand something. There’s a huge range of pre-existing skills and knowledge in the other people in the class and inevitably you’ll know less about some stuff and more about other stuff than your pals
- Especially with the wide range of skill sets in the program, whenever I didn’t get something I knew at least a quarter of our program did and had to fight my self consciousness to ask the question. Also lecturers are really nice I would have asked a few more questions had I not been worried about looking like an idiot
- Get to know the people on the course and work with them – everyone has different strengths and will pick things up at different rates and it really helped this year working together to understand things.
- Capitalise on your classmates’ knowledge! It’s a nice symbiotic relationship
- Start projects earlier.
- Revise the second term lectures such that there are some baby steps leading to the big equations
- Summer quarter advice - make sure they have data you want to work with.
- Advice for the thesis: get your references and stuff organised and maybe don’t wait too much before writing some stuff.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Do you have any suggestions for finding accommodation in London?
Imperial College London campuses are accessible by public transport from most parts of London. When searching for accommodation, you may want to consider proximity to campuses where most of your classes will be delivered. The MSc Epidemiology course team are based at the White City campuses in West London. However, your classes will be split across the White City, Charing Cross (Hammersmith) and South Kensington campuses, all in in West London.
For additional information on accommodation, visit the Imperial College Accommodation website.
2. How much money will I need to live and study in London for a year?
Please visit the Imperial Living in London website for detailed information.
You will need to travel between campuses by bus, bicycle or underground train. Some journeys may be convenient on foot.
3. What is my tuition fee status?
Please visit the Imperial Fees and Funding website for the most up to date information on tuition fees.
4. How and when should I send official documents (e.g. degree certificates)?
Official documents need to be sent to Registry as soon as they are requested . Please check My Imperial portal for instructions on how to send these. All outstanding conditions of your offer will have to be met before you can be offered an unconditional place and register as a student. Registering as a student is a pre-requisite for joining the course. For any questions regarding your documents and outstanding conditions, you can contact Registry directly
5. When does the course start?
The MSc Epidemiology Course starts on 30 September 2024. Further details of the first week of term (i.e. ‘Induction Week’) will be sent via email.
For international students, Imperial College London organises some orientation events prior to the official start of the course. Please visit the International Students Webpages for further information.
6. I’m an international student – what else should I consider or do before my arrival?
Please bear in mind that you may need a visa and vaccinations before your arrival. If you think you will not be able to obtain the visa in time for the start of the course please contact the Postgraduate Education Coordinator, Jo Tite: j.tite at imperial.ac.uk
You may also want to familiarise yourself with information on how to open a bank account, and how to find a general medical practitioner (GP) after your arrival. Options for GP services include the Imperial College Health Centre in South Kensington or other services closer to your chosen accommodation.
Please also make active use of the general information resources for international students at Imperial.
7. Where does teaching take place?
Teaching takes place at White City, Hammersmith, South Kensington and Charing Cross Campuses; location will depend on modules taken.
Please familiarise yourself with Imperial campuses and maps
Note: The name of the campus may not correspond to the name of the nearest Underground station. For example, the Charing Cross campus is not near the Charing Cross tube station (but is between Hammersmith and Baron’s Court stations), and the Hammersmith campus is not near Hammersmith station.
9. What modules will I be taking during the MSc Epidemiology?
All Term 1 modules are regarded as either ‘core’ or ‘compulsory’ to the MSc Epidemiology (that is, essential). In Term 2 there will be opportunities to choose from a range of ‘optional’ modules. The Research Project is a core module on the MSc Epidemiology, which takes place in the summer (Term 3). We endeavour to provide a wide range of summer project ideas for you to choose from (a list of project outlines will be circulated at the start of Term 2) but encourage you to consider your own project ideas before the programme commences. Please refer to the research interests of academics in the School of Public, particularly from the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and the Environmental Research Group. Research conducted in these departments in best aligned to your course learning objectives, although projects developed with other SPH departments will also be considered. You will later need to develop and submit a research protocol for approval; the course team can support you with finding a supervisor with whom you can develop this protocol.
10. Do you have a reading list of books to prepare for the course?
We encourage you to do some general preparatory reading; we have attached a list of key texts. However, we do not anticipate prior learning in the subject matters, and the modules are taught starting from a basic level – so there will be adequate opportunities to learn the subjects even if you have never taken these modules beforehand. During term time, you would need to dedicate the allotted time for independent study as well as actively attend the live sessions and lectures.
11. Is there other preparation that I should do before starting the course?
You will be required to use software to prepare written reports and prepare slides to accompany presentations. Our computer facilities (see below) offer you access to Microsoft Teams, Excel, PowerPoint and Word for this purpose. Please familiarise yourself with these packages before the course commences. Virtual learning environments such as Blackboard will be introduced to you in induction week, and you may be expected to occasionally use interactive platforms like Padlet and Mentimeter. We request that you install and familiarise yourself with basic skills in the programming language R (please see the accompanying R preparation guide and series of free resources that will provide you with an introduction to R).
12. Will I need to buy a calculator?
You will need to do calculations for practicals and homework, where you can use laptops and/or mobile phones, so it may not be necessary to buy a calculator.
If you decide to buy a calculator, we recommend that you use the CASIO fx-85GT Plus (about £10). However, any standard scientific calculator should also be fine, so if you already have one, there is no need to buy another one. Importantly, you should check that the calculator has functions to calculate log (bases 2 and 10), exponentials, arithmetic means, standard deviations (S.D.), variance, geometric
13. What books do I need to buy for the course?
There is a core reading list of texts in addition to the books recommended for your pre-sessional reading. You will receive a handbook containing links to the core reading lists, when you arrive. These key texts will be available in the library (and mostly online), so choosing to buy any of the books will be up to you in case you want to retain a personal copy.
14. Do I need to choose my own summer project topic?
The summer months in Term 3 are dedicated to full-time work on a research project. We provide students with a list of potential summer project topics at the start of Term 2 (in January) and advise that you start thinking about possible projects before this. Alternatively, you may wish to submit your own project ideas for approval. Your idea for a summer project, must be supported by a member of staff within the School of Public Health who is also willing to supervise the project. If you already have project ideas in mind, please discuss these with your personal tutor or the course organisers soon after your arrival.
15. Who should I contact if I have any further questions?
If you have any further questions, please consult the following key contacts or resources:
- The Registry team for queries on your application, outstanding conditions, fee status, and registration status.
- Postgraduate Education Co-ordinator, for queries on timetables, induction week or any other administrative issues, Jo Tite (email: j.tite at imperial.ac.uk),
- MSc Epidemiology Course Organiser for queries on the course content and reading lists, Dr Sungano Chigogora (s.chigogora at imperial.ac.uk)
- Please familiarise yourself with information about postgraduate studies, and further information collated for new postgraduate students before you arrive.
Acknowledgements and contacts
We would like to thank Dr Matt Whitaker for creating the first version of this page for the cohort of 2020-2021. The maintenance of this page is done by the School of Public Health teaching team. For any questions regarding this page, please contact sph.pgteachingoc@imperial.ac.uk.