In Grad school currently studying American history from 1876 to Present with emphasis on African-American history (The Civil Rights Movement) and American religion. To be considered a "Historian" most groups/people/institutions want you to have at least a Masters degree in history, similar to being a librarian, in that you have to have a Masters in Library Science to be considered an actual Librarian and not a clerk. It's a lot of work, a load of research and I think people that are thinking about pursuing history need to be aware of how much time and effort go into it. Being published is a must and that becomes much more difficult to be original depending on the field, like if you pick a popular topic (think of the literally thousands of books on WWII.) One of the reasons I picked my focus was the way the field is changing and opening up to fresh and more detailed scholarship (and more chances in my finding success as a historian)

Quite stereotypically, I wanted to be a high school history teacher even while I was in in high school. I did not do well in high school, but I found a lot of fun and information in my history classes. Now that I am almost done with my bachelors in history and about to move to my teachers education, I am finding myself even more in love with history. It is just so damn interesting knowing things that happened in the past! I can't quite describe it.

I am envious of Dubstripsuads, my favorite classes have been African-American history and I don't think a masters and/or phd would be viable for high school teaching.

I'm going to hop on the boat here; I am going into a Classical History major next year, and if I may add to the question, what education should be obtained to pursue a career in history? I was thinking a graduate, but I'd like to hear from those who are more qualified on the subject. Thank you!

I have been working for over a decade teaching history teachers. I don't know if I'm a "historian", per se. You can decide that for yourself. I've never applied for flair here.

I started off with my MS in computer science, and worked on a project for a small corporation to develop an online, standards-based, American history instruction program (requires IE) that was in 3D and looked a bit like a first person shooter video game. Though obviously there was no shooting involved, I had experience with this sort of software (I was the author of CustomTF, one of the most successful mods for Quake 1, and had worked for defense contractors before doing VR work). I've always been a history nut, and through the course of building the software, I used by background in American history, I did a lot of research and worked to improve the lessons.

I moved from there to travelling around the country to teach teachers how to use the software, and how to use it in their classroom or the afterschool setting.

I moved from there to doing history teacher instruction full time, which involved me doing things like researching a historical event and putting together something interesting and useful for teachers to use, like my Cuban Missile Crisis roleplaying game. I have to do a tremendous amount of history research in order to teach history teachers, as you can imagine. (It's also why I write answers on a weird variety of subjects here on /r/askhistorians. I might write the Cuban Missile Crisis roleplaying game one month, and then create a Sengoku-era Japan politics simulator the next.)

I also got to listen to a lot of history workshops from my co-presenters, who were amazing history professors from around the country. 10 years of that, and you start to collect a lot of information!

I joined the AEA and became a professional evaluator somewhere along the way. This means I work for the federal and state governments to evaluate the effectiveness of their education programs. It's sort of like being an auditor, to ensure that their grant money is not wasted. This allows them, at a higher level, to determine how much impact they are getting (in terms of content knowledge improvement) for how many dollars they spend. Ineffective programs get cut.

As as evaluator, I've been to hundreds of classrooms and seen how teachers teach, and which methods are effective. This in turn improves my workshops for teachers, by letting me pass on techniques that have been shown to be effective.

I don't expect anyone else to follow my own career path, so as just general advice: learn everything you can. When a good opportunity comes along, go for it, even if it scares you. As a computer science major, I never expected to find myself one day at the CCSS conference, giving a speech in front of a large ballroom full of historians, but I have, and it was worth it.

I am not from the territory of the British Empire but from continental Europe, so the whole matter of academic graduation is very different and I cannot say that much on it.

I want to share an aspect of the other end of the career path or rather the middle of it.

Being a historian is all fine and dandy in it's literal, truest sense but also figuratively speaking. However, how do you want to pay the bills?

Seeking a clear answer to this question can help you immensely. Notwithstanding certain voices who are fast to tell you that all academic graduation outside of STEM is a waste of money and yadda, yadda, yad, there is still an opportunity for self-reflection here.

In my case it was the activity of web design work I did on the side. With it came the realization that the web is foremost about publishing content. Very early I started to see myself as someone who mainly writes for web sites instead of books. (Which is different from no books at all, nb.)

Suddenly the whole industry of publishing houses was seen in a different light, academia lost it's monopoly (in my mind) and I could see that there is a chance to make a living with history without becoming a professor.

Now, studying history for the passion in it is good. But if you see a chance to also work in your field later on, that is a whole other level of awesome. Which in my case sustained my motivation and emotional well being.

So my answer to your question is a question: how does your career planning influence your choice of subject matter for your history major?