Hey there~
So I'm not a history major personally, but one of my boyfriends is. He's experiencing a lot of burnout from just home stress, and then the fact that he will be finishing his undergrad after six years.
I want to ask people in the history field what there is in terms of careers for an undergrad student of history. I want to make sure if his only options really are History Teacher (elementary, highschool, college), or Historian, and if the only way for him to be successful in the field is Gradschool and a Doctorate.
I know this isn't about a specific history subject or a time period, but I'm really struggling with trying to help him on this and want to help him find what his options are. I checked the FAQ and didn't see a lot related to this subject specifcally. A lot of it does seem focused on the Gradschool side and the Graduate side, but seeing what undergrad careers there are, and how much it does open up with a masters or doctorate.
Those are the only careers that will use his history major in a really specific way, but history majors get very good at research and writing, so they can get jobs in all kinds of things that aren't specifically related to history. Tons of jobs will say things like "requires excellent written communication skills" or "must be able to research questions independently" and if you did well as a history major, you should be pretty good at those things. Most history majors do other jobs that aren't specifically history-related but use the skills they learned in their major
one of my boyfriends
How many boyfriends do you have?!
But back to your question. It depends on what exactly he wants to do with his life after graduation. He needs to find his "passion" (other than you of course) and sometimes people need several years before they discover what really inspires their intellect and spirit. You can do a lot with a history program-high school teacher, yes, and history professor, but also law school, marketing, consulting, finance, business. I think he should focus on doing the best he can in his classes now, and get a temporary job a year or so after graduation to have time to reflect on what kind of career he wants. Right now it's hard for him to figure out because he's in the middle of studying and class work.