The Victorian College of the Arts fosters the artistic and aesthetic maturation of its students in an environment which encourages the exploration and production of significant ideas and images. The individual artist’s voice is empowered through learning by doing or transformational learning. This approach also supports the growth of the autonomous and self determined artist.

The Victorian College of the Arts doesn’t just train artists it educates them for active artistic participation in the digital age. We have a flexible and rigorous approach to educating artists. Our curriculum stretches students, forces them to do and think about things they never would have otherwise. The VCA has a dual emphasis on making / performing and thinking, and on objects / texts / scores / ideas. It gives our students life skills, habits of thinking, problem solving abilities and an ease and familiarity with ideas. The VCA aims to equip students with the proper tools (both traditional and state of industry), digital technology, the necessary skills, the rigour and the discipline required to see the world clearly and to transform vision into art.

Collaborative and interdisciplinary art making helps us fulfil the founding vision of the VCA. That vision was that bringing all the arts together in the one location would encourage interaction among and collaboration between artists, both emerging and established.

The Centre for Ideas delivers a common curriculum for all undergraduates for two hours per week: The Artists in the World (lecture/tutorial) (1st year); The World in the Artists (Seminar) (2nd year) and Professional Development and Collaboration Contract (3rd year). The common curriculum enhances and complements the specialist training and education offered in the schools. It supports our students to survive and thrive as artists in the 21st Century. The CFI also delivers college wide postgraduate seminars and is the base for the delivery of the VCA's groundbreaking postgraduate programs in community cultural development.

The VCA is an open complex in Melbourne’s art precinct. All the art forms are taught – visual arts, film and television, dance, production (including design and puppetry), drama, music, and community cultural development and indigenous arts management – in facilities that are specifically appropriate for the art form. In addition to studios, performing spaces, galleries, cinemas, auditoriums, recording and sound stage facilities, editing suites, design, costume and production workshops, the VCA has computer labs and a well-stocked Library.

The VCA is culturally diverse and international in outlook. It has a strong indigenous student cohort and an array of curriculum and other activities to support a college wide cultural transformation for staff and students in understanding indigenous cultural issues. International students come from all continents, and staff and student exchanges and a rich array of international guests and artists, enhance an international perspective.

The teaching staff are distinguished senior artists, mid-career and young cutting edge artists, they are established and contemporary. Those who have had and have major artistic careers are accomplished and generous communicators who know how to enter imaginatively into the realm of their student’s work. They will help students acquire and redefine skills, to use the tools of the trade and they will challenge them with questions and new ideas.

Beyond the programs there is a vibrant life at the VCA – a chance to engage in collaboration with students from other disciplines, to appreciate and respect the ‘language’ and practice of other art forms and to participate in the many activities and community access programs that utilise the campus throughout the year.

Through the Artists Booking Service, students can engage in professional opportunities within the corporate and community spheres.

The VCA serves as a national resource for issues related to the position and importance of the art in society. Symposia, conferences, non-award programs and special events all add to the life of the campus.

Our immediate neighbours include the National Gallery of Victoria, the Malthouse complex, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Chunky Move, The Australian Ballet School, Arts Victoria, Opera Australia, ABC and SBS, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the MTC, The Australian Ballet, State Orchestra of Victoria, Victorian Arts Centre, Hamer Hall - Melbourne’s Concert Hall and the headquarters of Melbourne’s festivals, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Fringe, Writers, Comedy are nearby. Students of the VCA use these cultural institutions as a dynamic extension of their studio life. Access to the works and having the time to really look at them, to really experience and hear them is a vital way to acquire the visual and performing arts education artists needs. Tickets are often made available to students. Companies rehearse in the VCA facilities and visiting artists undertake master classes.

The VCA is justifiably proud of its long history and through the achievements of its former students and staff the VCA has had a major impact on the evolution of a distinctive and authentic Australian cultural life. The VCA is committed to making things happen, to pushing the boundaries of art practice. The VCA accommodates the traditional and the innovative, the paradoxical and the speculative, produces excitement, tension and new ideas…….. just like art itself.