Hey there!

So I completely get where you're coming from. I really, really, really didn't like school and history was pretty much the only academic subject I consistently enjoyed during my schooling.

The first thing I will say to you is this: when deciding what you want to study at the university level, it is important that you pick a subject you're going to find interesting and passionate. Whilst the structure of the American education system generally gives you a little more time to make a final call in that compared to here in the UK, where you have to pick just one or two subjects from the moment you apply to university, I would encourage you to pick subjects that you will find genuinely interesting and stimulating to study. You are going to spend three or four years working in your subject area, and the more interesting you find it, the easier it's going to be to motivate yourself to put the hard work in.

The second is that university degrees are not career starter packs. It's true that some university qualifications lead themselves to very natural career paths - but most don't. Most people don't know what they want to do with the rest of their lives at 18 years old. Studying for a History degree doesn't mean that you will only be able to go into a career orientated around History, and you will find people with History degrees working in every field imaginable. History is a very good degree for developing your critical thinking, problem-solving, analysis and research skills - all valuable in most modern work places. Studying History does not mean closing yourself off to all other career paths and options.

It is true that a History degree alone is not very likely to get you a job somewhere, even if you do well in it. But this is true of the vast majority of degrees - what will distinguish you to employers one day is the variety of ways in which you took advantage of your time at university to grow and develop yourself, and to acquire experience in relevant areas of work. Going to University opens you up to a huge array of opportunities to develop yourself as an individual and bolster your CV in the process. It will be the extracurricular activity, volunteering/paid work experience, personal development activities and academic performance that you can demonstrate on a CV or job application that will make you stand out at the end of university.

There are certainly options open to you if you decide you want to pursue a career in a historical field, like working at a museum or becoming an historian at a university. It is also true that these fields will usually require you to at least go on to further study to get your foot in the door, and that they are very, very competitive places to try and find stable work. But I really would not worry about this right this second - you are still in high school and you have years of development and growth time ahead of you before you're going to start applying for those jobs. Your focus for now needs to be doing well in your studies and getting into the university you want to go to, not what you're going to do five, ten years from now. I would also not get yourself set on a salary figure right now - many people take the temptation to rush off after university into very high paying jobs, and whilst that absolutely works out for some people, a very high level of entry pay is also often a sign of very strenuous working conditions. Take time at university to look at your options and different paths, and learn about what matters to you most in the short and long terms from a career.

If History is where your passion lies, then I would encourage you to follow that up in terms of what you study at university, and make sure when you get there that you take advantage of all the opportunities the university experiences throws at you. Once you are at university, you will be able to connect with career advice experts who actually know what they're talking about (I don't mean the kind of people who give you a frivolous personality test and say "you should work in X" - I mean people whose job it is to literally help people build a career), and you will start to get a feel for whether a career in History really is right for you or if you'd prefer to take the skills you develop in your degree into another field. I have friends from my undergraduate course who work in every field that you can imagine - research, teaching, museums, university administration, law, finance, marketing, recruitment, the civil service, Human Resources, the charity sector, and so on. In most cases it's the mix of their skills and the extracurricular activity they took on as undergraduates that helped them get a foot on their career ladder. As long as you apply yourself and use your time well, you will have options. Chase your dreams but do so in a pragmatic way that means you'll have alternative paths to take that will still be satisfying and rewarding.

I always dreamed I could be my high school history teacher when I grew up. She was incredibly knowledgeable, passionate, and dreamed of creating a better world by showing us how to understand the stories we were told. I had a really hard time in college and eventually dropped out to go study acting at conservatory.

Nowadays I'm a tour guide, and recently ran into her for the first time in fifteen years. When she heard that I was a tour guide, she told me that's what she wished she could do! Meeting people from all over the world, reading books about local history, going to the places where these things happened, and telling people the stories of my home.

As for historical sites, a friend of mine now sits on the board of the Pike Place Market Historical Society and is a representative in the Market Constituency (the group that speaks for the people who work in the market). His archaeology degree helped a little, in terms of being able to understand historical documents and artifacts, but most of his success in achieving his dream of participating in public history has simply come from being involved in his community.

At my current company, the woman who writes our tours has a journalism degree. Her two primary "research assistants" have a history degree and no degree. I'm one of a small group allowed to interpret local native culture and history for our guests, and this means I spend a fair amount of time - though not as much as I'd like - reading and listening to stories from local native people, both elders and young people.

Basically, there are lots of ways to be successful, and to follow a dream in history. Very few of them get to be actual historians. Just like /u/sowser mentioned above, plenty of people get history degrees and find them useful elsewhere. Turns out lots of us get to be part of history without a degree too.

I heartily recommend the advice above. Try out some things that interest you in college. Check out museum work, volunteer with your local historical organizations, look at the national and state parks if you're in the US. Even if you bomb out like me, I was able to turn my interests into an actual set of skills that has gotten me to this place where I get to be the person my history teacher always dreamed of being.