High School Academic Program and Undergraduate Academic Program
The primary mission of the North Carolina School of the Arts is to train young artists for professional careers in the performing arts. However, since its beginning, the School has had a strong commitment to providing a sound, supporting curriculum of academic studies to ensure the broader education of the artist. Vittorio Giannini, NCSA's founding president, expressed this concern most eloquently as he spoke of the plans for the School in 1963:

"It is not enough to be trained as an artist, but as a person. As an artist you will express yourself as a person, and the richer you are as a person the better your expression will be. So, in this framework, you will have academic study."

The High School and Undergraduate Academic Programs offer young artists (grade 8 through college) the opportunity to broaden their perspective on themselves as individuals and as part of society. The academic curriculum focuses on those areas of the humanities and social and natural sciences which contribute to the general cultural and intellectual awakening of the individual. Particular attention is paid to the design of academic courses relevant to the arts-oriented student.