The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of computer graphics course on college students' artistic abilities, specifically creativity, self-expression, and aesthetic appreciation. For this study, eighty two-year college students majoring in graphics were divided into two groups: the computer graphics course group and the conventional graphics course group, each including forty students. They took a pretest on artistic abilities. After taking the graphics course for one semester, the participants produced four graphic works with four graphic themes which were character design, C · I · P design, advertisement design, and editorial design, The graphic work of each theme was produced one after another after three weeks graphics instruction. The graphic works of sixty eight participants, that is, thirty-three participants in the computer graphics course group and the remaining thirty-five in the conventional graphics course, were evaluated by three graphics experts in terms of artistic abilities with three sub-domains. The study included two independent variables(graphics courses and graphics themes) and three dependent variablestartistic abilities: creativity, self-expression, and aesthetic appreciation), and three moderator variables(prior artistic abilities: creativity, self-expression, and aesthetic appreciation). Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOYA) was used to test all hypotheses. Results were as follows: First, the participants who had taken the computer graphics course showed higher degree in the development of creativity than those who had taken the conventional graphics course. Second, the participants who had taken the computer graphics course showed higher degree in the development of self-expression than those who had taken the conventional graphics course. Third, the participants who had taken the computer graphics course showed higher degree in the development of aesthetic appreciation than those who had taken the conventional graphics course. And fourth, the participants who had taken the computer graphics course showed higher degree in the development of artistic abilities for character design, C · I · P design, and advertisement design than those who had taken the conventional graphics course. However, there was no difference in the development of artistic abilities between the two graphics groups for editorial design. The results of this study imply that the computer graphics course lays positive effects on the development of college students' artistic abilities. The study also implies that there is no difference in the development of artistic abilities between the computer graphics course and the conventional graphics course for editorial design theme.