There are more than you might think, though not all of them will ever use history directly. The nice thing about history is that you learn more than just what happened in the past. You will learn how to write (a skill which can't be underestimated) and how to think laterally and logically. Both of these skills are very marketable.

Obviously, you can continue in the professional historical discipline and become a professor, teacher, or museum/archive worker, but for those you almost always need a graduate degree. In fact, if you go history you will probably need a graduate degree no matter what. The CIA frequently hires historians to work as analysts, as do other intelligence gathering organizations. The military loves hiring historians, though they frequently train their own. The Department of Parks and Rec also hire historians to work on public history sites around the country. In the civilian world, large businesses hire historians as their own private researchers and writers to log their own pasts. I also personally know several people with history degrees who do quite well in upper level jobs that have nothing to do with history, but the skills they learned allowed them to pick up the job easily and think about it in ways that no one had before. One of the things to seriously think about is where you would like to focus your historical studies. That will affect what jobs become available to you.

There are more options, but those are the ones I can immediately think of.

Attorney here -- I graduated with degrees in political science and ancient history.

I found the latter was much more helpful in law school (though higher-level poli sci courses were certainly valuable). This is because most of law entails interpretation of primary sources and understanding the competing influences that went into them. You won't find statutory interpretation as hard, basically, if you've spent your college career parsing the meaning and influence of ancient texts.

If you develop a real interest in history, too, that fascination will also be satisfied by parts of law school, and parts of practice. But it will best prepare you to enjoy the challenge of appellate practice, rather than (say) trial advocacy. And that puts you in a bind, because that's a tough field. Be prepared to put in time as a government attorney to develop the skills you'll need to make a career out of appellate work in the private sector. [Edit: you'll probably also enjoy motion practice a lot!]

Just to add a bit to the other posts, I know of a few history BA majors who went on to prestigious law schools and/or work for investment firms. I also know teachers and PhD students, myself one of them. It's all about marketing the skill set you learn as a historian, which are elaborated nicely elsewhere in this post. My friends in the medical profession also told me, too late for me, mind you, that many med schools see liberal arts majors as an asset over the traditional pre-med or biology, since it offers different perspectives, skills and personalities. I had similar encouragement from professional friends and family members who work in the energy and insurance sectors, though I opted to choose to pursue an academic career for the work flexibility and the personal satisfaction of teaching.

As a history graduate student, several of the recent grads from my program have got state department or DoD jobs beginning in the 80-110k range. In the US, very few professions actually require a specific undergraduate degree. It's much more about marketing yourself and your skills. Most entry-level positions in the US just want to see a degree to show you have some level of intelligence, can learn, and can start and finish something. Most careers that do require specific training either require post-BA professional training, like law or med school, or you might hit a ceiling eventually and need an MBA or PE to move up. But those certifications can always be attained when the time comes through night school or even paid for by your company in some cases.

If you're going to college just to get a degree in the hopes of finding some sort of job after graduation, I would say history is a great choice, and you'll probably enjoy your experience more than if you pick a business or finance major just for the potential job prospects. If you want to be safe, pick one of those as a minor to cover your bases and enjoy college!

Being a Historian is more of a skill set than a specialization. The skills you learn as a Historian can be carried with you into a lot of fields; Education, Media, Politics, and Academia. In some less conventional uses, you could even do things like video game design(Look at Paradox Interactive for a solid example of historically based games development). You could even try becoming an author, both fiction and non-fiction, using the knowledge base you have as a historian and the skillset that comes with it. There are also a lot of government jobs that being a Historian would be beneficial for.

With that said, never throw your eggs in one basket. The future is irrevocably going to be the age of technology, with courses like Computer Science being in high demand and a guarantee of very important jobs in the market.

I absolutely love history, but as a career move it isn't the safest way to go, and a lot of people would use the adage of not making your hobby your career, because you do lose a certain level of passion for it over time. If you really want to study history, I'd do it as a minor.

Unless you are dead-set on law school or academia I wouldn't recommend it as a major. You'll be competing for the same jobs as a lot of other majors and won't be eligible for any particular jobs based upon your particular major.

I always advise teenagers and young adults to major in either a hard science / engineering or a guild-type profession like nursing or accounting.

Dunno why the guy at the bottom is being downvoted, maybe its because this is a history subreddit. But seriously like he said, unless you want to take that degree as a secondary one for a career in law or academia, history as a major does not offer a lot of other options.

Just look at all the jobs and careers that are out there, most of them require an associated major from a university. think medical profession, engineers, lawyers, HR, operations, and even sales. all of them require a degree. when i say sales, im talking about specialized sales and not retail. specialized sales usually require the person to have indepth product knowledge which usually comes from working on said thing. There are also other trade options which also require hard skills to back them up.

the current economy for the us is a service economy with a lot of specialized white collor jobs. Most of which require special degrees because everyone you compete against will have them. So only do history for fun unless you are serious about it as a career.

I work as a finance manager for a fortune 500 company and i majored in finance/accounting with a minor in philosophy and history because i found those topics very interesting. but i knew that a good steady paycheck only comes from a hard major.

The most important thing to remember is that, unless you wish to pursue a career within academia, a history degree is mostly complementary. A history degree is a good foundation upon which more practical qualifications can be built. With a history degree you can pursue teaching or information management, for example.