Our approach to teaching arts

An ever-evolving jobs market requires jobseekers who can embrace change. It’s important to learn skills that can be transferred across the multiple careers you’ll pursue over the course of your working life.

With its strong emphasis on critical thinking, communication skills and real-world experiences and curriculum informed by contemporary international issues, our National School of Arts and Humanities equips you to become agile and meet challenges head on.

A flexible future

An arts degree helps you understand and experience the world. And an arts degree from ACU encourages you to change the world. It’s important to us that our graduates are socially aware and ethically minded. Across our degrees, we emphasise the importance of working for the common good and acknowledging the dignity of the human person.
Enrol in any of our arts degrees and you’ll be able to take your learning abroad. You could find yourself exploring literary New York, soaking up the creative air at Venice Biennale or working with students in schools in South East Asia. We offer international community engagement experiences, immersion experiences, international internships, one off units, or semester or year-long study abroad opportunities.

Closer to home, our school has a number of programs that give you the opportunity to get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself.

The Big Idea competition

This national competition invites students to identify an area of disadvantage in the community and to develop a business case for a social enterprise that will help to reduce the disadvantage. Through their community engagement unit, arts students plan and promote their ‘big ideas’ to bring about positive change in diverse communities. They also have the opportunity to meet with successful social entrepreneurs, thought leaders and industry professionals.

In 2017 and 2018, one of the ACU teams reached the national final for The Big Idea.

Read more about The Big Idea

International study opportunities

The National School of Arts and Humanities offers our students a range of innovative international study experiences around the world, including two-week intensive study tours in locations such as New York, Rome, Beijing, Paris and London. Students can also choose a full semester study abroad program through one of our many international partner universities to fully immerse yourself in a new community and culture.

Read more about overseas study opportunities

Arts Scholars Program

The Arts Scholars Program was created to give high-achieving students in the National School of Arts and Humanities a pathway into postgraduate study. Every year, we invite a small group of students who have met the GPA requirements into the program to study tailored units designed to hone their research skills and give them the chance to participate in ACU’s research culture.

The Arts Scholars Program gives students a window into academic life and an understanding of what it means to be a professional research academic.

Internships opportunities

The National School of Arts and Humanities offers our students a range of internship and community engagement placements to gain invaluable professional experience while you study. Our students have the opportunity to be involved in programs such as the Victorian Parliamentary Internship and are then able to progress into a graduate position as a journalist, researcher and more. Experience life in the workplace with our courses at ACU and begin to make a difference now.

Walk in My Shoez

Third-year students from Melbourne’s Bachelor of Media Production produced a television show Walk in My Shoez that was broadcast on community station Channel 31. The show, shot on location and in our on-campus TV studio, premiered in 2014 and ran for three seasons and highlighted the positive changes that shape society.

Work in Progress Day

Honours and postgraduate students from the Melbourne and Strathfield campuses present their research at the National School of Arts and Humanities’ Work in Progress Day each year. A part of the school’s research life for more than 15 years, this event showcases papers from the disciplines of drama, history, literature, media, music, politics and sociology.