The college has been contributing to the cause of Women’s education in North Coastal Andhra unstintingly for the past fifty years, since its inception on 7th July 1958,

St. Joseph’s College for Women (recognized by the UGC in January, 1960) was granted the Autonomous status in July 1987.

St. Joseph’s College for Women (Autonomous), a Catholic minority institution, is managed by the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Annecy, France. The congregation runs old age home, a nursing home, schools, crèche, orphanages and dispensaries in several parts of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Kerala.

In the 1950s, Visakhapatnam did not have any facility for the higher education of young women. So impressed were the public of Visakhapatnam with the service rendered by the Sisters that, in 1957, a group of prominent citizens requested the Sisters of St. Joseph to undertake the task of setting up an institution of higher learning for the young women of the city.

The college, affiliated to Andhra University, was founded on 7th July 1958, with six members of teaching staff and 28 students in the Pre-University course. The college was set up to serve the interests of the young women of Visakhapatnam and continues to do so with no thought of commercial gain. The emphasis then was on the teaching of Domestic Science but the college has since then diversified and developed to cater to the changing needs and aspirations of the young women.

The college is now a grant-in-aid institution, with a campus area of 7.5 acres and student strength of 1250, offering four Intermediate courses, eight Undergraduate courses in BA, B.Com and B.Sc and four Postgraduate courses.

The temporal plan of academics is through the Semester system consisting of 110 working days, of which 90 are teaching days. The infrastructure with reference to laboratory, library and others is functional and aesthetically satisfying. The library is open 8 hrs. a day for all the 110 working days of the semester. It houses more than 25,000 books and subscribes to international as well as national journals and periodicals. The support services available in the college include Hostel, Workshop, Sports facilities, Canteen, Vehicle parking shed, Guestrooms and Student Welfare Schemes.

The college is a member of the All India Association of Christian Higher Education as also the Xavier Board and utilizes the facilities of these agencies for training the faculty. The Department of French has linkages with the educational wing of the French Embassy, New Delhi and Alliance Francaise, Hyderabad. The Department of Homescience has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Community Foods and Nutrition Unit, Ministry of Human Resource Development, for training the Homescience students in the techniques of Fruit and Vegetable Preservation.

Some of the distinctive features of the college are:

1. First women's college in Visakhapatnam started in response to public demand in 1958.
2. Pioneer in the field of Homescience since it was the first college to develop Homescience course at degree and Pre University level in Andhra Pradesh.
3. The college completes two decades of autonomy this year and has the credit of being one of the first seven colleges in Andhra University area  to be granted Autonomy in 1987.
4. Performance of the students in Competitive examinations and feed-back from students progressing to higher education reveals that the curriculum developed is optimal in all aspects.
5. Participation in NCC/NSS/Sports is a compulsory requirement of the curriculum.
6. The language departments' emphasis on Functional courses to develop the communication skills of the students was the first of its kind in coastal Andhra.
7. The English department's programme of streaming for General English and planning teaching methodology to suit different entry levels of language proficiency was the first of its kind in Andhra University area and the state.
8. Women's Studies' as a subject of study to develop the self-confidence of women students was introduced  by the college for the first time in Andhra Pradesh.
9. The concept of broadening the impact of Foundation course by adding two other courses, one of which offers non-core option is a special feature.
10. The College has successfully completed a World Bank aided Capacity Building Project on Street Food Vendors which was a nationwide program under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
11. Under Project Genesis  the college is imparting JKC (Jawahar Knowledge Centre)  training to the final year students  for placement in IT enabled services and in Infosys Technologies.
12. The College has been designated as a Partner Institution by IGNOU under the Convergence Scheme.