Excellent question! There are many opportunities for volunteers: your local museum; your local preservation group; your local archaeological excavation, or your local park.

There is nothing in the world that says that only professors can make a professional contribution to history. I have known many "experts" with no degrees. It is extremely easy for a persistent researcher to become the expert on a house museum and the people who lived there. I knew a retired engineer who became the leading expert at reassembling shattered artifacts, and next to him was a retired accountant who is known for his expertise on mineral bottles imported from Germany. One the Great Basin's most respected experts on prehistoric sites - from rock art to rock shelters - had no degrees. Persistence over six decades gave him a vast body of knowledge that all archaeologists respected.

Graduate studies in history help shape the mind of an academic so they become aware of how to evaluate sources, how to recognize larger academic discussions buried deep in secondary sources, and how to place historical events and people into larger contexts. That said, I have known many professors who fell short in one or more of these contexts even while they were surpassed by people who simply loved the subject and threw themselves into the study of the past.

As the role of the university changes in the twenty-first century and as online tools and sources become more available, I believe we will be seeing a shift in who makes contributions and how they make them. Anyone who wants a vocation (paid or otherwise) in dealing with the past, needs to ask themselves some fundamental questions: What do I really enjoy about the past: reading; visiting, touching artifacts, etc. What would I really like to do with the knowledge I would like to acquire: sharing my knowledge through talking, writing, blogging, or simply sitting in my room contemplating.Once I sorted all that out, I would go and "do" history. You don't need a licence, and if you persist, you may find that you have become very good at an aspect of the study of the past. The world of the past - and its possible uses - can open to anyone.

Most flairs aren't history professionals. Make it a personal challenge to read through posts here, review your level of familiarity with your domains of interest, advance your learning by reading the references, then contribute at the level acceptable to AH. Finally, submit a flair application.

Simple 5 step process.

I am in precisely your position, I love history, dabbled with it in Uni but eventually decided against it due to the career prospects. During and after Uni I did a lot of reading but just reading was not really scratching that itch in the way that I needed it to.

History is still my hobby, and I engage with that hobby by creating a history podcast. It is a great way to scratch the itch of reading/research/writing while at the same time producing a thing that other people engage with. In the Age of the Internet there are all kinds of possible avenues for a non-academic to engage with history (as /u/itsallfolklore mentioned as well).

I have no interest in history as a career, but I love learning about it. The only thing to it is just that: learn any way you can. I've read books (modern and ancient), listened to podcasts, watched youtube videos, read posts here, and clicked on wiki links for groups/things just because I'd never heard of it.

My interest in history stems from finding answers to the question, "just how did we get where we are now? So, for me, I learn mainly to get the broad strokes of what happened to get a country or group to where they are now; this made my long term goal to get at least that same broad stroke understanding for as much of the world as I can.

Maybe that's not what interests you though, and that's the question you kind of need to ask yourself. What, specifically, is your draw to the subject? Is it the cool stories? Is it finding out how a society actually functioned? Is there a group you find really interesting?

Finding your answer there is going to be what really helps you find your path or even help people give you sources to look at. History's a massive subject, and you'll find people with interests in everything from my broad strokes to something as specific as fashion history. Don't worry if you don't know the answer right now either. Just learn wherever you can, and you'll find it by following whatever trips that urge in your head to learn more.

I initially went to grad school for a PhD in history, but I saw the writing on the wall and left after completing the MA portion of the program. Although I left the ivory tower, history is still very much a part of my life. A few years back, I started blogging about my former field of study, and that turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. Not only does it give me an excuse to continue doing research, but I also get the satisfaction of sharing my work with the general public instead of having it locked away in pricey journals. I also have the freedom to pursue the projects that I find interesting without needing to worry about pleasing a tenure committee.

I also work as a tutor at my alma mater. This lets me experience many of the pluses of teaching (e.g., helping students understand the relevance of the past) without the minuses (e.g., grading).