A job at the college level will require a PhD at least, unless you are in some very underserved area where community colleges will let MAd teach.

Aside from teach at a High School or Intermediate- which is by no means less worthy or awesome than working at a university- there are a number of history-ish professions to consider.

Public Historian tends to be the top of the list for many- that is working in a museum, or historical residence, or living history show, or tour guide. I know a number of B.A.s and M.A.s who have gone their route and really enjoyed it.

It really depends on whether you see teaching history as a goal or want to engage with the field in some other way, or use it as a basis to go another direction entirely- like Law School or public policy or something.

Teaching is the obvious career path for historians, but there are other options. Of course, this depends a lot upon what type of history we are talking about.

• A historian could write popular history books.
• A historian can also hire out his or her services to write histories of businesses or old organisations. (This can be surprisingly lucrative, by the way, if you find a nice niche.)
• There are also historians as entertainers. History can be really interesting, and if you have a knack for public speaking and story telling you can make a career out of it. You can star in documentaries or have public speaking engagements.
• Historians often act as consultants in the entertainment field, like for historical dramas.

However, note that you often need credentials to be taken seriously. And you get credentials in – you guessed it – academia.

I have a history degree and an M.A. in medieval studies. I'm a UX designer now. I also worked in an academic library for almost 4 years after getting my M.A.

After getting my B.A. I wanted to give academia a shot with the goal of becoming a professor. On the whole, it was discouraging and depressing to experience the state of the field. There is a serious systemic problem with universities cutting funding and relying on underpaid adjuncts. I decided that I didn't want to spend my 20s, possibly into my 30s being underpaid, overworked, and at the mercy of a very, very bad job market for tenure track positions.

I can't say that my current career uses my history degree directly. However, studying the humanities taught me how to study people with a sense of empathy, do research, and think critically--all of which are vital for UX designers.

Here's the real dope: if you're not planning on becoming a history teacher, or going to graduate school, then a history degree, by itself, is not an obvious road to any particular career.

But the same can be said about practically any non-vocational degree.

So what's next? Well, that's the tough question. In practice a history degree makes you qualified to do a lot of things at the entry level — you can write, read, form complex analysis, see the big picture, dig into the details. (Ideally — your mileage may vary.)

So there are lots of places where those skills are valuable. But they are never going to advertise themselves as saying, "we want someone with a HISTORY degree!" They're going to be the jobs that say they want a college degree but don't specify a whole lot on what the details are. It'll be your job to sell them that your history degree is part of what makes you such a compelling and interesting candidate.

So on the one hand: good luck! There isn't some obvious career with tons of jobs strictly for people with undergraduate degrees in history. But on the other hand: chin up! You're not in a uniquely terrible situation, and over the long term history majors do fine. But outside of engineering, accounting, computer science, finance, and a handful of other degree majors where there are huge dedicated sectors of the economy ready to scoop you up (for both better and worse), you're going to have to find a way to get your foot in the door somewhere first.