The Associate Degree in Arts is a two-year course, full time (or part-time equivalent), that provides you with opportunities to interpret human culture and behaviour from different perspectives and periods, to explore today’s big questions and learn how to support the social and economic development of humanity, andor to be immersed in creativity, performance and innovation. The award is designed to allow you to choose your path: it can be the first two-years of your Bachelor of Arts study, or you may like to enrol in this degree to pursue your passion and undertake two of the majors in the BA, or to extend your curiosity and try units from a number of disciplines. The Associate Degree in Arts gives you the flexibility to choose from subjects to build your knowledge and diversify your skills from a wide range of over twenty possible majors and minors in the Bachelor of Arts as well as many individual elective study options.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 trialling a concept and designing an arts project for a specific group or need.