A question regarding career opportunities for historians.

It really depends what part of history he wants to focus on and where he wants to live in the future, as some places are more limited than others. Bare with me, I think this is going to get a little long, but I hope it helps.

When I started my undergraduate degree in Ancient History I was convinced I wanted to become an archaeologist out on the field doing the hands on digging, however as time went on and with the positive encouragement of my professors, I realised that it's probably not something I would want to do in the future. Now that I've finished my degree, and I've been out of university for about 9 months, I can give you my current opinion. I tried to keep my units at university 'broad' in the sense that I wanted to learn about many of the disciplines which make up history, so I ended up taking a few classes on museum studies and cultural heritage. While I didn't find the content as exciting as my ancient history classes, it did open up my eyes to the job prospects that I could be interested in.

My real passions and focus is understanding early state formation in the Near East - specifically from the Chalcolithic into the Bronze Age, however I am also so interested in understanding how cultural heritage all over the world is alive and constantly evolving. Due to this, I have decided to pursue a Master's in Cultural Heritage rather than a Master's in Ancient History, and to begin working in the museum sector. However, this has caused me to move abroad, as unfortunately in Australia there is not much need for someone with my niche area of expertise.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that a google search or a ask historians question might not be able to answer the question for him because he might not know what he could be interested in if he doesn't ever try it. Also, I never went into this field to make money or become rich, mainly to satisfy a curiosity I've had since I was 16 of how the first civilisations came to be and in part to leave a legacy of knowledge for future generations. Also, it's not too late for him to start studying, 24 is nothing in the grand scheme of things, and he will find that he may have a closer relationship with his professors than he might have at 18, and that could open up some doors for him in the future.

Also, in my personal experience, I would not recommend him to talk to lecturer until he gets to know them better as they can sometimes be off-putting. I spoke with one in my first semester of my first year who told me that the field is over saturated and that there's already jobs filled by more senior people. He then told me a lovely anecdote of his daughter who is a little older than me, who studied modern history and Russian and now works in a nursing home doing some sort of high up job... real encouraging stuff... I actually left that meeting in tears and cried the whole way home at the bleak prospects. Anyways, jokes on him because I still haven't applied for a nursing home job.