Program Overview

The Bachelor of Arts is the ultimate, flexible university degree, and you can tailor it to explore your interests and discover a wide range of career possibilities. It is an opportunity to pursue what you loved in high school or branch out into areas you've never had the opportunity to explore.

Our students embrace the joy of open enquiry, are curious about life’s big questions, and are on a life-long quest for knowledge and inspiration. You will hone skills like critical-thinking, research, and inter-cultural awareness under the guidance of passionate academics who are leading researchers in their fields.

You can take on cultural, environmental, and humanitarian challenges from multiple perspectives and gain the confidence to make a positive difference. Through our close relationships with government and industry partners, we will prepare you to start your career with the skills employers want.

Major: Creative Arts and Health
Engagement with music, visual arts, dance and other creative art forms can change people's lives, bringing joy, restoring self-confidence and improving mental and physical wellbeing. In this major, you can learn about global developments in this emerging interdisciplinary field and develop an understanding of how and why the arts can help to relieve suffering, improve wellbeing, and foster resilience. You will have opportunities to explore your own artistic creativity and challenge yourself to apply your knowledge and skills through finding arts-based solutions to the health and wellbeing challenges of the 21st century.

In your first year you will learn the fundamentals of how interactions with different forms of the creative arts are processed by the brain, evaluate innovative arts-based programs that have been developed to improve function and wellbeing and reflect on your own experience of the creative process. In the second year you will continue to explore your creativity and learn visual and digital skills for arts-based interventions along with a range of strategies to promote emotional wellbeing. During your third year you will develop further contextual knowledge and skills for working with diverse groups of people of all ages and deepen your understanding of how engagement with the arts affects the brain and body. You will also research specific applications of the arts to improve the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities, while developing your own proposal for trialing a concept and designing an arts project for a specific group or need.

Studying this innovative major in Tasmania will give you access to leading researchers in creative arts practices, dementia, sociology and health, within a state that leads the world in alternative responses to ageing. By completing this major you are eligible to receive membership of the peak creative arts therapy association ANZACATA. Graduates in this field find employment in diverse settings including arts organisations, hospitals, aged care facilities, rehabilitation centres, and prisons.