To the historians of reddit, I’m currently a high school student in Australia with a love for European medieval/renaissance history. It’s been my life’s dream to one day become a historian and work in this area. I’m very prepared to work and live in Europe if finding work there would be more rewarding. I’m planning on studying history at university and completing a post graduate course. I’m prepared to work very hard to enter this field and want to know what my chances of succeeding are. I would also consider curatorial or archivist positions if I found they suited me better.
Could anyone let me know the challenges or likelihood in pursuing this career pathway? As I said, this has been my goal in life for as long as I can remember and would hate to have to rethink my options because of low chances of success. Also what is the average wage for historians in both Australia and Europe and are there different levels of work for historians?
If anyone could answer any of these questions it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
I'm currently finishing my bachelors degree, majoring in history.. My advisor for the history department brought to my attention that careers in academia, at least in Canada anyway, are extremely difficult to pursue. It took her nearly twenty years after she got her PhD for her to get a job in her field. The job market is increasingly small, due to the amount of students being churned out of universities. History in particular is also getting smaller; as much history as there is, to receive a PhD you have to contribute original work to the academic community, and to specialize in something new that you're interested in is difficult depending on what you're interested in. Not that this is meant to discourage you, since I heard this first hand yet I'm still hoping to get a PhD and become a historian/professor myself. It's all about what's available in your area/where you go when you complete your studies. Never give up though, because you never know!
Well, my favorite history professor told me not to pursue a post-graduate degree in history. This askhistorians thread does a pretty good job going over the reasons that you shouldn't pursue a doctorate in history. That said, there is a small number of people who make it work. So, if you really do love history that much, you should probably go for it
I am right now doing my PhD in history (also with a specilization in medieval history), therefore, I think I am the wrong person to give career advice, as I have of course the same existencial risks and worries as a BA (just that I have a scholarship but that not a real job). The idea to go into fields that are linked to history and require you eitherway to study it seems very reasonable, still.
What I can give as an advice especially for medieval history, is to always try to get more knowledge of languages that are necessary for your research. Right now the "thing" for medieval history is to study Arabic (in addition to Latin) as it offers you many great opportunities (for very different careers too, if you "fail") and is also very fitting to recent global/transcultural historic approaches. In contrast to later periods in history, the material you want to read in medieval history is usually still in Latin if its from western or central Europe and additionally you are usually required to learn other languages, too. From my own experience I would recommend you to study Latin and another language, useful for reading "special" source material later on. But usually you discover things that you get interested in (this can also be skills like paleography for reading medieval Latin writting) during your own time at the university. But its never to early I think to try to specialize in some way that gives you additional exitstrategies, as you suggested yourself already with the archive.