I hate to be the ruiner of fun, but I think the mods are gonna shut down this post since the rules are like this:

Submissions to /r/AskHistorians must be either:

-A question about the human past

-A meta post about the state of the subreddit. Anyone may start a meta post, but please check with the moderators if you aren't sure you're using the label correctly. Short questions (e.g. clarification of moderation policy) that don't require discussion are better sent to the mods directly.

-An AMA ("Ask Me Anything") with a historical expert or panel of experts. These should be arranged with the moderators beforehand – please message us if you're interested.

My answers might be atypical of the sub, but I thought I'll chime in anyway.

When did you guys decide you want to study history?

I took a few History units at university while studying Social Work. We needed to learn about Australian history, and also at the time, our first year was made up almost entirely of electives...so I took a few other History-related units.

Eventually I decided Social Work was not for me, and switched to a BA. I nominated History and Political Science as my majors. I decided to study History then because a) I already had enough units to fulfill the first year of the major and b) I enjoyed it.

While I enjoyed studying History, I was also a horrid History student...but somehow still came graduated with a History major because some of my Political Science units were also counted as History ones. Not sure how that worked but I wasn't going to question it ;)

-Did you get a degree? If so, where?

Yes, I double majored - History alongside Political Science. Not sure if naming my university is helpful if you're not in Australia.

What job do you have related to history?

Never worked in a history-related field.

What can I do with a history degree?

I have several friends with a History degree. One of them completed his Honours degree, and now teaches English in China. He's also published a book and is working on a second one - him and a colleague have just published a section of it in an academic journal.

Another friend completed her PhD and is currently lecturing at university. She also did stints at various government departments.

Generally speaking, it depends on how far you want to take your degree. You can come out with a Bachelor's and apply the skills you've received from your studies [i.e. analytical and conceptual skills, ability to research independently] into a wide variety of fields. However, if you want to work in a History-related field then you will probably need to study some sort of post-grad.

I decided I wanted to study history in 10th grade, while reading the federalist papers.

Did you get a degree? If so, where?

I got a BA in history from St. Olaf College.

What job do you have related to history?

I'm currently doing grant-funded research on the history of Native Americans for a local historical society. I've also been involved in digitizing old obituaries, cataloging and rehousing blueprints, and general archival assistant sorts of things.

What books pertaining to your field of study would you recommend?

Kyvig and Marty's Nearby History. It isn't exactly an exciting book, but it is a nice introduction to local history.

Also, Mni Sota Makoce is good overview of Dakota history, if you're into that.

What can I do with a history degree?

Currently, there are local history jobs available to people who have a Bachelor's Degree, but having a post-grad degree provides significant advantages in terms of both available positions and pay.

I've also known people who have gone to law school, taught (that's the obvious one), or become corporate headhunters (okay, that was just the one guy).

When did you guys decide you want to study history?

I'm from the UK, so my experience is a bit different. Most people here specialise in 3-4 subjects when they are 16, and at university there are no majors or minors - everyone studies for a degree in a specific subject only (though some are more general than others, I know a few people doing a BA in Liberal Arts for example). This was great for me because I had several great history teachers in school, so I always wanted to do a history degree.

What job do you have related to history?

Just started my Masters in October, so I'm a long way away from getting a job related to history. I will be applying for a PhD somewhere, but due to the competition here for funding (apparently funding bodies don't think history is a useful degree, who could have guessed?), I may well have to take a year out and do something else. A lot of people tend to go into teaching (often abroad) to earn some money during their gap year.

What books pertaining to your field of study would you recommend?

I'm interested in the later Roman Empire and early Byzantium, so anything written by Peter Brown, such his excellent The World of Late Antiquity, will give you a broad overview of how exciting this period is.

What can I do with a history degree?

Most of my coursemates at university did not continue onto postgraduate study in history. A lot went into the 'real world' and got decent jobs; as others have mentioned, a history degree gives you so many transferable skills that you can apply to other fields, even more so if you attended a prestigious college. You can also go into other fields for postgrad - quite a few friends are going into teaching, others are doing masters in journalism or programmes for public policy/diplomacy. From my perspective, a BA in history just gives you so many options, even if at first glance it's a degree without much impact in the real world.

I also have an atypical story; might be of interest.

My Sophomore year AP European History class cemented my love of History. I had read Barbara Tuchman and Donald Kagan and more, but this class galvanized me.

I double majored in History at a small liberal arts college. My thesis was on the progression of upper extremity prostheses from the 19th century to Vietnam era.

And that brings me to why I'm posting: I work as a doctor. I do not use my History degree. But I don't have any regret in getting it. I loved studying history in school, but knew the career options associated with it were limited. When I applied to medical school my History degree was a POSITIVE. It has been in my life in general.

When you get to college you'll be encouraged to study what you love, and this is generally good advice, but also use your college years to prepare yourself for a satisfying career. Which may be only tangentially associated to your degree.

As for books? My God, how to choose one star from the sky?

-Did you get a degree? If so, where?

I got my BA in area studies (Russia), then MA/Ph.D. in history.

-What job do you have related to history?

University professor. But I would emphasize that ending up on the tenure-track was sheer luck. The majority of equally talented and qualified people don't get there - it's a vicious lottery. On the brighter side, many alternatives exist. These days, digital information management is important and useful in a huge variety of contexts, and an advanced degree in history falls into that broader category.

-What books pertaining to your field of study would you recommend?

There are so many...for readable scholarly books: Mothers & Daughters by Barbara Alpern Engel, Ghost of the Executed Engineer by Loren Graham, House & the Garden by John Randolph, Stalin's Peasants by Sheila Fitzpatrick and of course her "short course," The Russian Revolution. I'm sure more would come to mind with time, but those pop out.

-What can I do with a history degree?

I'd like to add a few things beyond what others have already said. Any humanities/social science major will teach you critical thinking and research skills. Some things history, in particular, teaches you include:

1. Being able to sift through massive amounts of detail-rich information to select important bits that can be used in an argument. This is actually a rare and valuable skill that, I believe, will become even more valuable in future. It has obvious immediate relevance to law, but we're in an Information Age where this kind of skill will matter more in many realms of work.

2. Being skilled at the logic behind understanding cause, effect, and contingency. This is at the heart of what historians do. In how many fields is it useful to be able to analyze what has, or will, cause change? Business, non-profits, and politics come to mind, but really it applies to any field.

3. The development of historical empathy and general knowledge about the history and cultures of the world are also increasingly important to globalized business, politics, law, charity, etc, etc, etc. This can be attained through a literature degree, too. But I think in one important way history is particularly good at this: history is a field of "splitters" rather than "lumpers." We tend to "split" or narrow sources of cause/effect/change to understand them as minutely as possible, rather than "lumping" phenomena into patterns to identify models, etc. Both approaches can be useful, of course, but one of the great dangers of our future, in my opinion, is the human tendency to make generalizations about groups. History challenges this tendency constantly.

As others have said, history majors can go on to do just about anything. Someone entering college next fall may well end up in a career that none of us can even imagine today - things are changing rapidly. So I would recommend that college students focus less on the choice of major (do whatever you like well enough to succeed at), and focus more on how to isolate and articulate the generalizable skills that that discipline teaches you, so you can tell a future employer what you will be able to do for them that others can't.

When did you guys decide you want to study history?

I've always enjoyed it despite subpar teachers in grade school (you know the ones, holding a position so that they can coach sports). But once I got to community college, my Western Civ instructor ignited my passion to get a degree in the field.

Did you get a degree? If so, where?

I plan on graduating in May with a BA in history, political science minor from UNCA Asheville.

What job do you have related to history?

None yet, but I will be pursuing graduate school for a doctorate so that I can be a university professor.

What books pertaining to your field of study would you recommend?

Since my main field is Medieval Europe, and I'm writing a thesis about trial by ordeal, I'll recommend Warren C Hollister's Medieval Europe: A Short History and Robert Bartlett's Trial by Fire and Water: The Medieval Judicial Ordeal.

What can I do with a history degree?

Plenty. A Bachelor's doesn't define a career trajectory. One of my professors was managing hotels in New Orleans before she decided to get her PhD. A degree teaches you how to gain the information you need and think critically about that information. Another way to think about it is that your diploma acts like a membership card: 'I did the work that was asked of me for four(ish) grueling years. Now please employ me so I can pay back those student loans.'

I always enjoyed history and "social studies" in school. Got hooked when I found stone tools in the fields behind my house as a kid, solidified in college after taking an intro course in archaeology.

I got a BA in anthropology with an archaeology concentration. Later I added an MA in archaeology.

I am a full-time salaried government archaeologist. I review projects that are done in my area for quality of work, potential national register eligibility, potential impacts from development as well as doing some field and lab work and curation.

I'd recommend In Small Things Forgotten by James Deetz as an intro to US historical archaeology.

You can do a lot with a degree that allows you to think critically about information presented. I have friends who are in the Foreign Service, some who teach and various levels, some who went on to be librarians- it goes on and on

Best of luck to you. You have plenty of time to figure it all out.

I'll bite...

Did you get a degree? If so, where? I ended up doing a BA in history due to the intricacies of the British university application system. I had initially used my 4 of 6 applications to study medicine (the maximum number of medical schools you can apply to in the UK) and after a big falling out with biology applied to do history because it was the only non-science A-Level I had. I used my two remaining applications to study at Sheffield and Leeds because they accepted my application late, and got in only because Sheffield accepted my A in General Studies. I have my BA and MA from Sheffield, and am now in the third year of my PhD, so at least I hope to fulfil my original ambitions of becoming a doctor.

What job do you have related to history? I effect the ability to teach undergraduates while toiling at my PhD in nineteenth century American conservative political culture.

What books pertaining to your field of study would you recommend? I'm not so cruel as to recommend anyone read anything related to my field of study, but Jim McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom and Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals are both good reads.

What can I do with a history degree? Put off having to make significant life choices (job, home, relationships, children, mortgage, new clothes et cetera) for a few years, extendible through postgraduate study.

I had a fairly long career at sea (16 years) as a Navigating Officer in the Merchant Navy and Royal Navy before going back into education. I'd always spent a lot of time reading, both at home and when at sea, so my knowledge of History was already extensive at an amateur level. There wasn't much else to do at sea when not on watch, apart from drink! My wife thought going to university would be a good move for me, so I applied and was accepted. I did one more trip during my first summer vacation, and never went back.

-Did you get a degree? If so, where?

My first degree was at the University of Teesside, the closest university to where I lived. I then got an MA by dissertation at the University of York.

-What job do you have related to history?

I initially worked as a Lecturer in Modern European History at Teesside, a Tutor in Modern European History at York (a part-time post, essentially I was a Post-Graduate student used for teaching under-graduates) and then went to Cambridge to get a PGCE. I now teach History in a large secondary school.

-What books pertaining to your field of study would you recommend?

Far too many to say. My area of professional expertise is Revolutionary France, and there are probably more good texts on that subject than any other.

-What can I do with a history degree?

Have a look at this, http://www.history.org.uk/resources/public_resource_2914_76.html from the Historical Association, which gives a pretty good survey on careers open to History Graduates. As has been suggested by other contributors, the skills learned in the study of History are transferable to just about any field of endeavour, commercial or otherwise. Law, politics, journalism, business .....