The Armenian School of Oriental Studies has its roots in the Mkhitaryan Congregation of Vienna and Venice and the first center of Oriental Studies in Russia, the Lazarian Seminary of Oriental Languages. Oriental studies courses have been taught at Yerevan State University since the very first years of the university's establishment.

The first professor of oriental studies was the literary critic and orientalist Gevorg Asatur, who was invited to work as a lecturer of Georgian language and Oriental literature in 1921. In 1923, the outstanding linguist Hrachya Acharyan was invited to YSU from Tabriz. In 1940 from September, on Hr. Acharyan's initiative, a chair of Oriental Philology was created, and in the same year, the department of Oriental Languages and Literature was opened, based on which, in 1968, the Faculty of Oriental Studies was formed. Professors Gevorg Nalbandyan, Boris Balayan, Mary Kochar, and Gurgen Melikyan have operated it for different years.

The Faculty has a three-level education system: Undergraduate, Master's, and Postgraduate.

Leading specialists in the field, who give lectures at foreign universities and undergo training in prestigious international educational and scientific institutions, teach at the faculty. At the same time, internationally renowned scientists regularly give lectures at the faculty.

The YSU Faculty of Oriental Studies cooperates with a number of leading international educational and research centers (Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation, Moscow State University, Institute of Asian and African Countries (Moscow), University of Jordan, University of Kuwait, University of Cairo), Tehran, Isfahan, Yazd, Jundishapur, Nishapur and Tabriz Universities, Hamburg and Bonn Universities, Sorbonne University, Austrian Academy of Sciences and University of California Los Angeles, as well as leading universities in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.

The Faculty of Oriental Studies of YSU cooperates with almost all scientific and educational institutions operating in RA, with the Iranian Department of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia and the University of "Mesrop Mashtots" in Stepanakert. The employees of the departments are included in the grant programs of the RA Science Committee. Projects are implemented within the framework of the financial support of the Abdulaziz Saud al-Babtain Center for Arab Culture.

The best students of the Faculty of Oriental Studies receive nominal scholarships.

To make the studies more interesting in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, student organizations operate. Students of the faculty have the opportunity to participate in training courses organized in partner institutions, as well as to study in European universities within the framework of the "Erasmus+" program.

Graduates of the faculty are able to work in state agencies, embassies, research and educational centers, international organizations, translation offices, and elsewhere.