I studied history because I love it. Studying the past is always fascinating and invigorating, it is truly mind opening.

That being said, if I could I would go back and do something else. History is interesting but a history degree is not very useful in the real world. I got my job in IT due to a lucky break.

Because it's interesting as fuck, and because writing papers rather than taking tests let me procrastinate a lot more.

Word of advice though, pair that shit with a practical minor. Business, economics, SOMETHING that lets you spin your way into an interview.

For me it went like this:

I'm 19 years old and fresh out of military service (it was mandatory back then in my country). Ask myself: what do I want to do the rest of my life? Well, I really like history and talking about history with others. So, if possible, I'd like to get a job doing that. What jobs are there where you can do that?

History teacher. So, that's what I became. 12 years later, I am loving life. I am 31, I have a job that I love, I get a decent salary, and since teachers dont't really rise through the ranks, there is no stress to advance in my career. I also recently got tenure. I can just spend the next 40 years talking about history with people (which I would have done anyway), and then drop dead and people will say about me that I lived a good and honorable life.

Basically, I am in Nirvana, and it's all because I studied history. Would absolutely reccommend.

I'll take a little different approach to answer this. History is interesting, Soviet history is particularly interesting to me, as is the history of bodies, movement, dance, etc. But lots of things are interesting to me.

And that's really what made me choose history over all the others. I could have studied literature and been happy. I could have studied film or dance or other arts (the history of them, the study of them, or the actual forms) and been happy. I could have studied philosophy and been happy.

What really drew me to history as a field is the diversity of disciplines that influence it, the range of subject matter you can study, and that I can do all kinds of different things all under the banner of "history." The field is incredibly flexible in this way and I think that is a real strength.

But then, the longer I've been in the field, the more I realize that the usual divisions between disciplines are far blurrier than the rigid administrative divisions associated with the academy usually imply. In truth I would fell at home in any number of different departments. Departmental politics, competition for funding, and other issues conspire to make your major and departmental affiliation an important feature of the institution, but at the end of the day if i am being honest the intellectual tradition that I feel a part of iis - broadly conceived - the humanities. I think we have far more in common than we do difference. Sure, genuine intellectual disagreement on things like method and theory exist, but we are asking the same kinds of questions about the world and about the human experience of it. This is an important link. I feel a kindred bond even with people in the sciences who are studying things like biology, chemistry and physics. Sure, in practice the fields are doing different things - but we're all out to study the world.

I really believe that an understanding of history gives us a much needed perspective not only on current world affairs but also on where our fellow human beings are coming from. If you know a bit about the history of where someone is from it can go a long ways towards building empathy and creating dialogue; in studing history you start to see that a lot of us have had the same struggles and for the most part we all have the same basic wants and needs (food, shelter, love, freedom). The world would be a much beter place if we were better at seing they ways in which we are alike as opposed to they ways in which we are different.

I majored in history because it's what I was most interested in and I love reading and writing.

A year after graduating, I now regret it though :( unless you're planning on teaching, going to law school, or doing something specific with history it may be best to major in something else.

I want to work in marketing/advertising and have been trying to play up my research and writing skills but it hasn't gotten me any jobs I want yet.

While other history buffs know how important writing skills are to be successful as a history student, many businesses don't see it that way. Zero job ads I've seen include "history" in the preferred degree section. In the job interviews I have had, one of the first questions they ask is why I studied history.

One plus side is that employers say that my degree stood out among all the marketing/business degree applications though! So I guess it's a double edged sword?

Anyways, if it's what your passionate about then by all means major in history! But do yourself a favor and start applying to internships NOW for whatever field you actually want a career in. Good luck!

Edit: something else to note! I don't know what the history program is like at your university, but the way my classes were structured it was very difficult to make friends in History class. My friends all came from the gen-Ed courses, where group projects were more common. I can't think of a single history project where I had to work with a classmate of group beyond just emailing each other slides for a presentation. While my business school friends were ordering pizzas in the library and goofing off, I was alone at the cafe furiously typing away at 20+ page research essays.

Not really saying anything new here, but I think it is worth emphasizing that a history degree helps you to become a very, very good reader and writer. The amount of material you will be expected to read and digest can be pretty daunting, but you get used to it (or you get much better at skimming and speed-reading).

I know Reddit worships the STEM major master race, but I proof-read some papers for my engineering friends in college, and you would be amazed at just how bad some of the writing is. No matter what you do for a career, being able to write clearly, concise and in an interesting manner is always a good thing.

If you study history, you really study everything which is what I am always interested in learning.

When I was in high school, I was reasonably OK at history but found it boring. I showed up to university not sure what I wanted to major in, thinking maybe something like English (I fancied myself a writer, because I was better than many of my peers, but in retrospect that said more about my peers than it did me). I found English not my cup of tea — too much reading of classics.

In my first semester I took the basic "intro to US history" class, expecting not very much, and was bowled over. The professor (Leon F. Litwack) held sway over an auditorium of several hundred undergrads. He spokes of an American history I had not heard much about previously — a history of struggles, of emerging and changing identities, a history of minorities, a history of labor, a history of shifting power. He went through many of the traditional American heroes and showed them to be at the minimum complex, at the worst, terrible. He showed me, in a way that I had just never really internalized before, that the United States was just another country, not favored or special in any particular way, and many of its successes have been built on scaffolds of blood and bones.

Now I am more politically moderate than Litwack is (or was), to be sure, but this woke me up. I came to this belief (which I now know has a name: historicism) that the present state of the world (and its future) is in a large part based on the past, and that if you don't know the past you will not know the present. And that we have all been told a great many mistaken things about the past, by people who would like us to act in certain ways in the present.

I found this tremendously impressive. History was not a field of study — it was a form of power. This already got my interest. And once I started doing actual research (starting with a research paper on the Port Chicago Mutiny, of all things), I started to find it truly fun. To dig through the remains of the past, through the letters of the dead and the remnants of what was, trying to seek out narratives, trying to seek out new facts — ah, that is true enjoyment to someone of my turn of mind.

I eventually found my way, through a serendipitous path, to the history of science, which really sealed the deal for me, because it combined an interest in the natural world (and in science and technology) with the practices of a historian. So I could do quite a lot of interesting things at once. Much of the history of science is about trying to reconstruct the subjective worldview of someone who is long-since dead and sees the world in a very different way. For someone like me, this seemed like kind of an ideal thing to get paid to do. Later I took the research thing to extreme ends by choosing to work on topics that were marred by secrecy and classification, but that is mostly just because I find them to be fun and interesting, and I like the challenge.

As for the more practical side of things (jobs) — I didn't worry about them at the time. It was the early 2000s, I figured something would turn up. Such was the luxury of a better economy, and having no student debt. Would I have chosen this path of study if I had started in a culture of outrageous student debt and no jobs? I don't know, but it's a very different sort of thing to imagine doing. (It should come as no surprise to historians and fans of history that, indeed, one's direct context does determine quite a lot of what one does in one's life...)

Social studies education major here. I personally had tons of amazing teachers in the subject growing up, and they helped me fall in love with it. I hate how the stereotype is just names and dates, names and dates, names and dates, and it is depicted as the "boring" class when the subject is so fascinating. I want to be that good teacher for future kids to help them see it is so much more than that. A little smoozy, but that is my perspective.

Like many other people who hold undergraduate degrees in History, I went for this degree as a stop on the way to a JD. Although my law career didn't work out the way I had planned (thank you, late-90's dotcom boom), I ended up doing work where strong writing & research skill, strong communication and presentation skill, and the ability present fact-based evidence-focused narratives to support one position or another mattered a great deal. While there wasn't a direct career path for me out of school with a History degree, the skills I learned during my undergrad armed me with skills that I was able to leverage into a very successful management consulting practice.

Again, unless you're going to for a high-level degree and plan to remain in academia, a History degree by itself is not enough to pay the rent. But, as an ancillary degree in support of aligned work paths, a degree in History makes almost everything else you do seem more natural, more efficient, and much more structured. If you have a second marketable career skill that align with the skills taught in History programs, you've got a clean head-start. Make sure that whatever Program you choose to attend puts as much of a focus on the craft of History as much as the product.

A long time ago, an attorney I worked with told me "I think everyone should go to Law School, not because I want more lawyers in the world, but because Law School is the only place in the world where you spend years and years learning how to THINK". I would put "a good History Program" in the same category: you learn to think, organize, and communicate in ways that almost feel like a superpower.

One last note: I didn't major in History because I wanted to be a Historian. While I love and read the history of everything ever, I didn't want to actually WRITE histories for a living. I knew ahead of time the methods and practices that Historians are taught (the tools used to actually CREATE histories), and really wrapped my arms around that piece of it. That I researched and wrote histories in school is secondary to having the skills to create them in the first place.

I really wish I had taken history and I struggle with that what-if often.

I did political science and discovered that, while there's plenty of work in the field a lot of it is subverting your own education and what you've learned. Canadian political science classes taught me about the sheer mess that is the Canadian government; too bad there's no work in pointing out errors and trying to fix them. Why do that when covering the problem up is an available choice? The transformation of political science into "PR with some name-dropping skills" really took the wind from my sails.

Political science and history are and ought to be deeply linked. One of my profs argued that poli-sci is simply history lectures with boring analysis for readings; while I don't agree that poli-sci literature is dull on the whole, I certainly see his logic. My most valuable classes were classes with historical takes on the topic at hand. My class on Chapter VII of the UN Charter was useful because the prof did one example (the Balkan Crisis of the 1990s) and provided a detailed history of Serbia et al that went back the better part of two centuries. My classes that emphasized spin-doctoring and postmodern "everyone-is-right-because-there-are-no-wrong-answers" were classes whose materials I've already forgotten.

Knowing the story of a place is essential to plan for and watch its governance develop and change. History anchors political thought, not the other way around. I'm glad I have the training I have, but I resent the denigration of history in political science and the rise of make-your-own historical record. Looking at the personality of the average political scientist and the average historian, at least in my experience I'd rather be the latter.

Here's the thing, though. The skills you learn in any social science or humanities field are invaluable and put you in great stead as regards thinking. You become a sharp critical mind and you learn to research and adapt effectively. You learn how to communicate better, you learn so many eye-opening tools of analysis...and then you're told that you're useless because MBAs who can't do those things because their training was more "talk-a-lot-for-a-long-time-and-never-stop-looking-busy" than "figure-out-what-needs-talking-about".

In short - welcome aboard, and be ready to market yourself because your degree won't do it for you.

I graduated 4.5 years ago with a double major in history and economics. I decided to major in history well before economics, mostly because I loved history class in HS and have a huge curiosity to understand historical events.

At the end of the day you have to study something you're passionate about, something that will let you spend countless hours reading books, soaking up information, and always wanting to know more. If you find that in history classes, then major in history.

I never approached my history major as a means to work in the field of history. History is one of the most dynamic and employable majors if you choose to make it valuable. When applying and interviewing for jobs employers don't care if you can describe why Napoleon lost at Waterloo or how Rome fell, but most employers want someone that is analytical, can synthesize huge volumes of information and communicate a succinct thesis. I work in finance and have excelled past my peers because while they studied accounting or finance and may have started with some of the tools to understand business, they lack the ability to write well, develop a thesis, or understand bigger pictures trends and themes. Where they felt uncomfortable sifting through lots of documents and information to figure out the big picture, I excelled because of the many hours in the library reading primary sources and developing a thesis and constructing an argument for the countless history papers I wrote.

At an alumni event for my school, a liberal arts major who went on to be successful in banking described the benefits of a liberal arts major: ' if I'm walking through a forest, an accounting major can tell me the exact kind of tree in front of me, but a liberal arts major can tell me how big the forest is and where we are within the forest.'

Now, to be employable you can't just study history because it can be very broad. Through studying history I always enjoyed reading about the economies and financial systems of different historical periods. That led me to double major in economics and opened many doors to work in banking. My point is figure out what you love about history and see what is similar in today's workplace.

I've just started my second year of history. I chose it because it was what I enjoyed and will be going on to teaching afterwards. I am a little disappointed in the variety of classes that we're given, though I do plan on doing further education eventually. I'll answer any questions that I can, though they might not be accurate depending on where you're from (I'm studying in Australia).

I majored because it was the only subject I was interested in enough to want to learn more. I thought about teaching but I later changed my mind and am now in the technology field. A huge leap but I don't regret the major. I had fun learning.

I would love to teach, but at CEGEP level (a type of college system in Quebec). For that I would only need a Masters, which is perfect for me because I don't have what it takes to go through the PhD process, but it would also allow me to follow my passion of passing my love of history on to others. I also think I'm an excellent and engaging public speaker (it's one of my only talents), so I feel like I'd be great at it.

History includes everything. All the other majors focused on just segments of the world. How does one learn to function fully in the world by ignoring so much of it? And yes, it was hard to get started in a career but once launched, I always seemed to have an advantage over all those with narrower foundations. And later in life, it offers a basis for understanding and enjoying everything from art to zoology. Yes I would do it again.

As a child my bedroom was wallpapered in National Geographic articles and maps. The Great Wall of China, The Pyramids of Giza, The Ruins of the Incas, The Trade Routes of the Silk Road, etc. I read quite a massive amount growing up, usually something Historical Fiction or about WWII. So History was something that I just always seemed to know and enjoy.

I always knew I wanted to major in history, I mean since elementary or early middle school. I went to a college preparatory school where I had some excellent teachers who encouraged and reinforced that choice, and also gave me a taste of what it would really be like (reading, analysis, and writing, rather than memorizing some dates and definitions and regurgitating them on a test). When I decided to go to a big state technical school rather than a small prestigious liberal arts school like my parents wanted, I realized I needed to do something else too because a liberal arts degree from here simply doesn't mean that much. So I went with business, and I've really enjoyed it so far. It pairs better with history than you'd think at first glance and it's a great, practical degree to have. In interviews I tell prospective employers that my business classes give me the practical knowledge I need and my history classes teach me analytical thinking and communication.

I chose History knowing that I wanted to go into education after graduating. I am also 19 and im in my second year as a history major and so far Im enjoying it. That being said, you will hear a lot of negatives in this sub and in many others saying that you will have a hard time finding a job. I personally don't mind it, since I will be pursuing a job in which ill be using it everyday, however if you think you're going to regret your decision in 20 years... I would make it your minor and get something more practical. I wish you the best of luck and dont hesitate to PM me if you have any questions. Ill be happy to help.

If you are going to major in history, figure out what you want to do with said degree before getting it. So many people today are getting degrees that you need to develop a specific skill set that an employer will want. This does not just go for history majors, but all majors. Figure out what you want to do with the degree AFTER because 4 years goes by very quickly.

I had made the decision to go to medical school around the time I had to declare a major. I assumed that they'd teach me all of the science and stuff I'd need to know to be a doctor in med school (other than the pre-reqs), so I could study something interesting to me during undergrad. Luckily, I did wind up getting into med school. That said, i would not have made the decision to study history if I didn't have that career plan. A degree in history gives you access to almost no jobs, in my experience. If you love history and want to study it, do it. But have a plan to make an actual living once you leave college--maybe double-major in comp. sci, or something.

What made you want to major in history?

I didn't, to start. I started college as an undecided engineering major. During my freshman year, though, I realized that it was my Psychology and Political Science classes that truly intrigued me, while I found my Calculus classes excruciating. Math was hard for the first time, and my college didn't take institutional credit for anything below Calc. I still liked science but lacked a specific career goal to motivate me to do the required math classes.

I left that school and started going to my local community college part-time, where I eventually earned enough credits in both Psychology and Sociology that I could get an Associate's degree in either one. I chose Psychology and was considering pursuing it for my Bachelor's, but I wasn't optimistic about my job prospects without a doctorate, so I opted to pursue a BA in History, knowing I could teach.

If I'd had a better idea of what I'd enjoy doing, I could've gotten my degree and gotten into my career five or six years earlier. Avail yourself of your advisors!

I genuinely enjoyed history and excelled at it. That being said, I never saw myself realistically getting a job with a history degree, so now I'm in law school.

I went into university as an electrical engineering/computer science major despite the fact that I had loved history my whole life as far as I can remember. As university progressed, I found it harder and harder to deal with the grind of a hard technical major I didn't love passionately, and I found university-taught history to be leaps and bounds more mature, intellectually stimulating, and interesting than whatever I had self-learned or studied before.

I didn't switch majors completely, since I was still doing quite average in a major that would definitely carry much higher chances of career success, so I simply added history as a double. This way I could pursue both the subject I had a passion for as well as one that could allow me to live comfortably past university. It also helped that I found my history major to be significantly easier than my technical major; I spent about 10% of my total work time on that major (as opposed to 90% on CS), and I still got much better grades in history. That could have been due to my passion and natural affinity for the topic, but who knows?

I feel that studying history has many benefits. Knowing the importance of context allows you to make much better judgments on so many different things in the world. Reading different interpretations and the necessity in history of being able to see things from a different point of view (i.e. trying to place yourself in the shoes of some hypothetical person from hundreds or thousands of years ago) gives you a lot of practice in exercising empathy, something which affects every facet of your daily life and is probably something everyone should try to be better at.

Technical majors often look down upon the liberal arts either consciously or subconsciously (believing it to be of lesser practical use in the world), but having experienced both in university I truly believe that study of the liberal arts is not only under-appreciated but also vital to any sense of human advancement, whatever that may mean.

I chose to major in History when I decided I wanted to go law school and they told me I could major in anything, so i chose what I liked the most and what I was doing the best in since I was told that my GPA would be important in deterring where I go and how much scholarship I get. I made one of the best decisions of my life. I loved learning about History and I never missed a single lecture. I did very well and I got into the law school I wanted with a very generous scholarship.

Current events have always interested me. I like to know and understand what's going on in the world. Adding a laying of history to that greatly helps you understand the present. Grasping history always came easy to me, because I could look back- and forward in time. There was a logic to it.

So I went to university to dig even deeper. From the general history we all learn in secondary education, to the deeper cultural and socio-economical history of foreign societies.

Another principle I learned, through the need for objectivity, is to always be questioning myself and my assumptions.

I went into history because I loved it since I was a little kid and I wanted to learn everything about how we got to where we are. I love meeting people from around the world and I found that studying history gives you an edge at being able to connect with people. Ex. Learned about Bangladesh in history, when I met someone from Bangladesh, I asked if he was from Dhaka (the capital), which made a lasting impression on him. I wasn't worried about what I was going to do with my degree because I knew I had great networking skills. In university I fell in love specifically with financial history. After uni, I made contacts, took some finance designations, and am now a securities trader and I love it.

Edit: I live in Canada where university is somewhat affordable. I also did a lot of things to boost up my resume beyond my degree. Started a business, sat on a number of organizations etc.

I studied history because it was fascinating and I wanted to know more. I went on to become a lawyer, as I never found a particular area of history I was so obsessed with I could see myself pursuing an advanced degree in. However, the core skills that a History degree requires of you are tremendously useful. Research, critical / analytical thinking, and persuasive writing. All of these things helped me a great deal in law school, and are valuable in many other fields.

If I could go back and choose a different major, I would have picked History again.

I asked myself: what do you enjoy? And I kept coming back to history, it's something that I have always enjoyed throughout my entire life and it satisfies my curious nature.

Now I work in a library. I'm glad I went to school for something I loved because I love my job and all that time spent with primary sources in a library helped me in my professional life.

I majored in History because I wanted to study politics, and I had -and still have- the belief that to study politics you need to know history.

So here I am with a double major in History and Politics.

I was choosing between either than or politics. Then I took a medieval history class and absolutely loved the professor. By the second year of it, I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do with my life, but it gave me good background for what I actually wanted to do.

Only way that I could get through college was by majoring in history. Liberal arts blows in terms of having to take a foreign language but other than that its good.

Well, I was always interested in history, especially classical history, so when it came time to pick a major, that's what I went with. I always got extremely high grades in history, I liked certain sciences but never got those terrific grades, even struggling through things like Chem and math. Now I'm halfway through my history degree and don't really know what to think of it. I personally have no interest whatsoever in teaching or law school. I was interested in a marketing minor but advisors at my school tell me that marketing degrees are a dime a dozen and most people they know who got into that field don't have marketing degrees. (My mom was a high level marketing VP who had a degree in English). The main reason why I decided to forego a marketing minor was that it would be tough to do with really only 3 semester left before graduation. (I plan on studying abroad next semester and no marketing classes exist at that school). All in all, people have given me the impression that I can get into the marketing/business world, especially with an MBA and the undergrad degree isn't the end all be all.

Because I love origins stories and finding out how we arrived at this point in time bases on events. I also wanted to defy what my dad wanted me to major in and I took bad advice from my advisor.

If I had to do it again, I would major in an employable major and continue with my love of history. Wasted too much money going back to school for additional degrees.

History appeals to me. That's why I chose to major in it. Because at the end of the day, though I liked other majors - or the idea of those majors, nothing wowed me like history. I enjoy the skills at work in history: considering arguments, reading dense works and sniffing out their meaning, seeing long-term trends, and even writing papers, at times. While I'd say those ideas are more broadly applicable to the humanities (I don't think it'd surprise anyone to say I enjoy philosophy and English as well), the immediate visibility of history in the world fascinates me and inspires me to learn more. I chose a history major because, quite frankly, I love every part of it.

If you enjoy history, read history books. Don't waste four years of education on a subject you can easily teach yourself in your free time.

Pick a career, then a major. I chose to major in history because it was the only subject I enjoyed, but there's really no practical application for it.