I am a sophomore in college pursuing a degree in History. I really enjoy the subject and have always been very good at it and love all things history related. I use to want to go into education, being a teacher or professor. As of late, I wanted to explore more career options that apply to history majors. What jobs to history majors get? What jobs use the skills that are gained in the study of History? Thanks for any information!
I have a history/religion degree, and at the risk of being a buzzkill, it's ROUGH. The problem is while a history major does teach you great skills like reading, writing, persuasion and strong communicative skills, in the eyes of most employers, you're no different from the other kids with degrees in sociology, anthropology, gender studies, or any of the other liberal arts. All of those disciplines emphasize similar skills, and most private sector employers don't know and don't care about the differences between them.
My advice to you would be to build your own personal brand. Start a blog and write about whatever interests you. Make sure when you do apply to job that you tailor your resume and CV to show exactly how your training as a historian provides value to the company. Positions in research, sales, editing and writing are good places to look.
And if you can stomach it, there's always teaching. I tried to teach in a New Jersey public school and lasted 5 months before I wanted to kill myself :-(.
And for the love of god, unless you LOVE the law, do not go to law school right now.
A history degree strongly signals your abilities as a good writer, which opens a lot of doors.
Law is a popular field for many history majors.
A lot of my history major friends who avoided (formal) academia did find jobs in various research firms/think tanks as well.
To echo what was already said, work for historians usually is related to your new found analytical and writing skills. I always say that anybody that has a history degree has learned to study efficiently, read efficiently, write efficiently, annotate and analyze efficiently, and argue effectively. Law, academics, any sort of work that applies towards research, development, and the application of what I mentioned above are very good fields to apply a history degree to.
AHA has some decent ideas for history careers here.
EDIT: ALSO, if you can, join Phi Alpha Theta. While it doesn't necessarily focus on things such as work, you SHOULD be able to find someone at your college (assuming PAT is available there) who can give you information for it. The folks that oversaw it at my university were able to provide me excellent references in several different fields when I graduated. Good luck!
I have two friends with masters in History. One works at a public library. The other is a board game designer.
What field in history are you planning on pursing?