The job market for professors in all fields is terrible. Spend any amount of time reading the Chronicle of Higher Education and that will become clear.

I graduated with a major in medieval studies and a minor of history. Could not find a job. Closest I could find was a job that I needed a masters and they wanted to pay 24k. I started working as a civil servant paper pusher for more and I have moved up and made good money.

You could keep the accounting and grab a history as well and do accounting in history

I had a friend whole did equine sciences and medieval studies and she tried at a masters/Ph.D. Focusing on horses on history, their care, the writings and the archeology.

Now, granted, she didn't finish it but you could use any field of study in history. Financial information is one of the most written thing in many places

I was going to ask which country you lived in, so I could advise you appropriately, but then I realised that was silly: if you live anywhere in the Western world (which I'm going to guess you do), becoming a History professor is incredibly, incredibly difficult. In British universities, most of the young History lecturers at mid-tier universities went to Oxford or Cambridge. I don't know, but I'm going to guess that in America similarly most mid-level universities are hiring Ivy-League PhDs only. 50% of students who really love History and want to do it as a job are going to be looking to become a Professor. 95% of PhD History students are going to be looking to be a Professor.

If you love History, and want to study it so that you don't go mad with boredom at university, that's fine. But job-wise, you need to know that you're probably studying "Generic but respectable Humanities degree." Employers will look at your CV and think "Yes, this person has got a degree, and it's not something stupid and easy." The chances of you getting a job that is looking specifically for History is absolutely tiny.

If you don't want to do Accounting as a job because you find it boring... your best bet is to finish your Accounting degree and then look for a job that's not Accounting. It might be worth changing your degree to something you find more interesting with prospects for a more interesting job (this depends on how the Degree structure in your country works, and how far you are through it: I'd recommend this for a 2nd year American student but not a 2nd year British student). But not History.

If you just enjoy learning History, then frankly you're better off just reading a lot of History books in your own time.

I loved History and Politics. I did History and Politics as a Degree, and I got a History MA. My job has nothing to do with History, and that's the same with everyone else I know who did History. I used to have a friend who has a History PhD and hoped to become a History professor: last time I talked to him he worked at the DMV.

I graduated with a History degree and now produce non-fiction radio and film. If you are interested in publishing historical work, I'd urge you to avoid making any commitments to graduate school as academia is so broken, and instead learn some media production skills.

My brother just got his CPA. I've almost completed my PhD in history. As you suspect: very different career paths! If you like filing your taxes, and want to do it 500 more times every spring than you currently get to, and really enjoy counting and making things add up, accounting is a great choice. If you go corporate, you might work with one company's books, and some folks manage to land a job where they get to do audits. But it all boils down to 1) lots of adding up numbers, 2) knowing the rules and regulations specific to whatever you specialize in, and 3) interacting with clients.

I personally think teaching and researching history is far more fun - you get to talk tk students, read until your eyes go bad, grade papers and suggest ways for students to inprove (and if you design your courses well, some of them actually will listen), and share your enthusiasm. You also get to find something you love and study it until you know it better than you know your own partner/spouse.

But history PhDs (and this goes for anthro and other similar disciplines in the humanities as well) have a lot of shit piled on, too. The job market is hideous - about half of PhDs get full time jobs in academia (the rest usually get good jobs, but not necessarily teaching or doing research). And getting that university job is a soul-crushing process: you're usually up against 150+ applicants for the same position, probably at least 20-30 of whom are perfect fits. Half the available jobs go to ivy league graduates, and the other hundreds of grad programs across the country fight for the other 50% of positions. It's common to bounce from poorly paid short-term contract to contract for several years before you land anything permanent. And half of people never get anything permanent. Do a google search for 'adjunct crisis' and read the articles that come up - it's bad.

Grad school isn't a cakewalk, either. You work long hours (50-60 hours / week often), are paid near poverty wages (some of us, though not myself personally, make little enough to qualify for food stamps), are more likely to be diagnosed with mental health problems, will struggle to find time for a family, and will watch all your friends from college have kids and buy houses and save for retirement while you live paycheck to paycheck. And you'll do this for the first decade of your post-college life - grad degrees in history, anthro, etc take about 10 years to complete on average.

During these years, you'll be competing for funding - usually, your department will cover the first five years +/- a few, but you'll need to travel for archives, which means spending weeks or months writing grant applications. It's good preparation for the heartbreak of going onto the job market.

That's the negatives.

In the end, I am happy with my choice despite all this. My work is satisfying, and as long as I don't think about the fact that my brother's net worth is twice mine and rapidly growing (he graduated from college 1.5 years ago, and I'm married and have been out for six!), I don't have regrets. I've gotten some big grants and fellowships, and that's allowed me to make three trips to the UK to do my research (one of which lasted 10 months). I've taught some amazing students. I've published research that I'm proud of, and read a lot of really cool books and seen some awesome archaeological artefacts at the museums where I've conducted my research. And I've managed to stay married and, for the most part, found enough time to stay human and stay friends with my spouse. But I might be unemployed this time next year, as I'm currently entering the job market - my tune may change then. (That said: 3/3 of the PhDs who just finished at my department are now professors, two of them tenure track and one on a three-year stint, ie good jobs.)

Don't set your heart on being a professor - those jobs are hard for the best of us to land. But it is possible to enjoy graduate-level work in history, and if you keep your options open, there are a lot of jobs outside academia that will employ trained history researchers.

Edit: I should add, getting a history BA is a pretty good choice, in terms of career prospects. History majors - and graduates with humanities degrees in general (history, anthropology, english, etc) - tend to do well in the longterm, in part because the humanities teaches you to be flexible and creative in the way a vocation-focused major like accounting doesn't necessarily. Forbes has had a few articles on this over the past few years that you might want to read as a jumping off point to learn more about why 'getting a job' and doing someting you love aren't necessarily at odds with one another. (Accounting, of course, is the safest choice - but a humanities BA isn't a bad option.)

If you are interested in history, you might consider becoming a HS history teacher. The job market is much better (especially if you get a math minor), the salaries can be surprisingly competitive with professor's salaries, and the lifestyle is - after your first few years - much more laid back.

And having a teaching certificate does not preclude you from deciding to get a Ph.D; it just gives you a fallback option in case you decide not to. Even the math minor would be helpful in a Ph.D program if you took several stats classes.

Many people like to read about history or learn about history, but discover that they just don't want to spend every summer in at the Truman Library in Kansas City reviewing all of Harry Truman's gasoline receipts.

I just graduated with a history degree. I currently work at a grocery store. I interned at a museum for a semester, but it wasn't what I expected at all. I still would like to go back for a masters so I could get into teaching at a community college. I had a professor who did this, but he said teaching history at a higher lever is super competitive. Just work hard and try to network with professors who specialize in what you are interested in.

I double majored, and history is one of my two undergrad degrees. History is fun, and I enjoyed learning it, but I deeply regret not choosing a degree that could be better applied within the job market.

I went into college, and subsequently graduated, with the thought that "you get a degree, you get a job"; and that's just not how it works when your degree doesn't teach you a skill that can be applied to a job. I've learned to sell myself in interviews on my ability to analyze and organize data, and think critically (things I learned as part of my history degree), but if I had the time and money, I'd learn something like accounting or programming. Something where I could say, I have this particular skill which is the core of this particular job field. That gives job security, and often times means better pay than your average joe 9-5.

thank you everyone.

Re: getting your bachelor's: Study what interests you. Your BA doesn't need to reflect (and probably won't reflect) what field you go into unless it is highly specialized.

That being said, study International Relations! Perfect balance of politics and history. I'm on my way to an Int'l Relations BA and I've had fun the whole three years.

Henry Ford (it is rumored) once said: "If you think your history degree is worthless, you're right. If you think your history degree is invaluable, you're right." A history degree sets you up for a career in a number of fields, notably law and politics, but also communications. Learning how to research and construct a narrative is essential to these fields. If you think you'll pull good grades in history, and if it's what you love doing, go for it. But take out an insurance policy - do internships in remunerative fields. Best of all: get a minor in computer science. Worst case, you'll be a well read fellow pulling a nice salary in an unrelated field. Best case, you wind up a data guru on a political campaign.

Instead of majoring I history, I went with Engineering, and took several history and lit classes to satisfy my curiosity. History is a hobby of mine now, and I know I made the right choice for me. With a stem degree, your mimics more likely to find continued employment. The do what you love thing is overrated. It should be do something you like that will pay for you to do what you love.