I had this question asked of me a lot when I told people I was doing my undergraduate (history and political science). First, let's get the practical advice out of the way. I highly recommending pursuing a double major, or at least tacking on a minor to your degree. It's surprisingly easy if you are interested in other areas of study and anthropology is obviously a natural choice. It gives you an "edge" and I found myself drawing on both majors when I was writing papers. I picked up my second major in second year despite academic advisers telling me it wouldn't be possible to graduate on time (lol) and it was the best decision I made during my undergraduate.

Now for the bit I love talking about the most:

It's important to recognise that a degree in history is not about knowing lots of facts about things that happened in the past. The one of most important things that your degree will give you (and this is true with any number of degrees, not just history) is the ability to think critically. This skill is profoundly important in the pursuit of pretty much any career and is in shockingly low supply. Research skills, effective communication skills, and the ability to identify what is/is not important will serve you in whatever career or job you find yourself pursuing post university.

In my opinion MAs are not as "important" as they used to be - certainly they are useful and at times necessary but the shift towards professional development diploma programs, courses, certifications (etc) is certainly on the rise. Think about your resume as a box of tools, many of which are attributed to your undergraduate degree. The best thing you can do for yourself to make yourself "more employable" is to add more tools to your toolbox. I hate myself for sounding like my father, but there it is. Always be on the lookout for programs that will give you extra skills - a lot of these programs are usually quite short and a heck of a whole lot less money than a MA.

It's good to know the pitfalls of a history major, but don't scare yourself too much. The history major has suffered from a marketing problem for years, especially after the great recession (the AHA had a useful article about this in December). The public has been convinced that secondary schools and universities should basically be trade schools; you should leave school and immediately enter into some corporate job—no more training required (this is quite rare actually). I think history's marketing problem has been amplified by the emphasis on STEM education in secondary schools, which subtly asserts that you can only get a job if you go into a STEM major. Furthermore, a generation or two of students were told that any amount of student loan debt was worth it because you only need to get a college degree. But as college got more and more expensive and as jobs got more difficult to get straight out of college, people started to question that logic, turning instead to majors that could pay for their crushing debt (my advice is to avoid debt; a little is easily dealt with but a lot can be a problem). A final strike against a history major in recent years is that it does lock you out of some career trajectories (e.g. petroleum engineers, chemistry engineers, some medical professions etc.), and some of these careers are among the top paying career paths for recent grads. But my guess is that you're not that interested in those majors/career paths at the moment anyway (and if you change your mind, you can go back to school. People switch careers; you don't condemn yourself for life because of a decision you made when you're 18).

Yet anecdotally, the history majors with whom I graduated have jobs, most outside of the field: lawyers, teachers, a wide array of business positions, marketing, management positions, work in the travel industry, a couple of pastors, a park ranger, NGOs, non-profits, and political campaigns/positions in Washington/state capitals. The experience of my cohort is not unusual; the data supports that history majors have a diversity of career paths open to them. A history major does not have an obvious, built-in career path like a few of majors (e.g. nursing, education, engineering, etc.), but as far as I can tell, most college majors also don't.

Therefore, getting a job with a history major means you have to rely on the same techniques that everyone else uses to find a job. It is about networking, resume building, skill acquisition, and self-marketing. It is about who you know, how hard you work, and being effective at marketing your abilities. It is about trying new things and getting good references. In an interview, you'll bring to the table different skills, interests, and experiences than your business, marketing and accounting major competition. You'll talk about having the flexibility to learn, being able to think critically, being able to write well, being able to carry out sterling research, and being able to weigh evidence effectively. You'll talk about the languages you've learned, the places you've traveled, the data-driven research you've done, and the unique internships you've had. You'll stand out, and you'll be fine. But you have to start planning for this reality right away.

Pursue options that make you stand out. Stay up late. Go out for drinks. Say yes to things. Toss your hat in the ring, even if you're not totally qualified. Pay a little extra here and there for extra experiences. Say thank you for the opportunity. Travel. Get tech skills. Get statistical skills. Have unrelated hobbies you can talk about with people. Listen. Get people talking about themselves. Buy clothes that fit. Avoid credit card debt. In my view, those are all small self-investments that pay off later and will help you down the road. Your major is just one choice of many that determine your future.

The most important thing when starting a degree is to make sure you're going to enjoy it. You're going to spend three or four years of your life and a lot of money pursuing this degree, so if you pick your degree on what you think is going to make you most 'employable' rather than what you find enjoyable then you're going to have a bad time. If you have a bad time, then you'll most likely end up with a worse grade. A First in History is going to be worth more than a 2:2 in Mathematics, IMO.

I always contrast my experience at college with my experience at university. At college I picked four A-levels; French, Business, Psychology and Sociology. I thought that these would give me a good basis for future jobs, but ended up hating my time there because they were subjects I was unfamiliar with and wasn't enjoying doing. I dropped one of the subjects and after my first year and got two Us and an A with the others. I never did the second year.

After a short break (8 years) I went to uni and studied History because I knew I'd enjoy it. Then because I was enjoying it I took every extra opportunity the university offered, from exchange programmes, a Year in Industry, extra language classes, and could really concentrate on getting good marks because everything was fun. I graduated with a First, could speak two additional languages, and had experience teaching to put on my CV.

As another poster has said, the ability to think critically is the most important thing you should be looking to take away from any degree. I agree wholeheartedly with the entirety of that paragraph they wrote, especially the part about the toolbox. I'm trying to say that you're more likely to want to try your hand at all the extra opportunities if you're enjoying the degree you're doing and thus you'll leave uni with more tools in your toolbox. If you end up taking a degree you don't enjoy and every day you go into uni drags, then you're less likely to seize opportunities when they come up.

As you've already identified, you can then start to deviate slightly after your degree when it comes to choosing an MA. Use your time at undergraduate level to find out more about the possible MAs you'd like to do and speak to your professors regularly about what you'd like to do as a career as they may be able to help. If you do a degree in History and Politics or History and Law, that might give you an even wider scope to approach your MA with.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that whatever degree you choose will be what you make of it. Enjoy it. Use your time at uni to think about your future. Take any opportunities your uni offers you.

And, you know what, History is really f*cking cool.

In terms of getting a career on its own, yeah, it's roughly as worthless as any undergraduate degree that isn't something practical like engineering. However, it can teach you valuable analytical skills, and it can get you in to grad school for many practical things (so many lawyers are history grads). Most professional schools don't really care what your major is, although some (particularly med school) do want you to have taken certain courses. Most generic entry level jobs also don't really care what your major is, they just want to see that you completed undergrad.

So yeah, not worthless, just not more valuable than any other degree.

Now, if you want to talk about becoming a professor, that is a whole different (and very bleak unless you are extraordinarily bright) picture.

A history degree, like the rest of the humanities, is worth what you put into it. Simply having a college degree is valuable unto itself- just any old degree is on average worth about 1 million dollars over your lifetime- and while it might not be worth as much as, say, a degree in Information Systems, it's still valuable.

The problem is that you need a back up, because otherwise you really will just spend your years after college being treated like a dog working as a barista while you wait for a college position which will treat you even worse because your typical college has no shortage of people willing to work as junior professors for a pittance. Or alternatively finding the same response trying to work for an archaeological company. There is simply far too much supply and not nearly enough demand to justify banking on a career in history or anthropology.

Then again, Information Technology is a field that is never, ever going to run out of demand. If you like history, great. If you like anthropology, great. I got my own degree in anthropology. Fascinating stuff. But unlike, say, IT skills, anthropology and history have a narrow focus. Literally every company in the world has at least some need for IT skills. And in fact I'd say it's probably easier to get into IT and find an IT job working at, say, a museum, or working in a government department specifically responsible for preserving culture and history than it'd be to get the primary focus of those departments.

And if you inevitably lost your job because of government cutbacks, you have IT experience which means you're always in demand.

So...my advice?

Major in history, minor in an IT field degree. Or get an IT degree with a minor in history. And I'd straight up forget about the Master's Degree for now. Unless you have some very specific career goals- becoming a doctor, becoming a lawyer- it's actually more useful for your long term career prospects to have a "real" job after your undergrad than it is to get more education.

I'm a History major, and I can tell you the fears are rather overblown. I received maybe 15 internship offers from top investment banks, and eventually did my internship at what is widely considered the best, if not one of the best investment banks. I left that for an elite boutique investment bank, which I picked because it demanded much more rigorously technical and independent financial analysis, the opposite of what you would stereotypically expect. At no point has my History degree handicapped me, and on many occasions it was a talking point for what would otherwise have been a very dry technical interview.

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What really matters to getting a job (especially one of these more 'elite' ones) is passion. Passion is in short supply in every industry. If you step up to the plate, find a group of like-minded people and build on your passions together, you'd be surprised how well-placed you become. I've seen Historians school their friends actually studying Law, and even one guy who got hired by Google after he continuously collected their bounties for finding security loopholes in their systems. For my part, I became an executive in the student investment fund in my university, and my knowledge in finance probably outclasses most actual Finance students because I genuinely love and care about it, so the understanding comes completely intuitively. I have found that interviewers who underestimate the depth of my knowledge because they see a History degree are disproportionately impressed when they realise I know what I'm saying.

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The caveat is this: You have to know what you're doing. As a History major, unless you want to be an academic or a high school teacher, nothing you learn in university will be directly useful. It is more than possible to excel 'despite' being a History major, but you have to be aware that while you're not operating at any sort of disadvantage, you will have to make your own opportunities, while the Law/Med/Econ/Finance majors get handed these opportunities on a plate.

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What are the benefits of a History degree in real life? I have found it really boils down to just two things:

1. Cultural Quotient: If you do any sort of global history, you will now have a remarkable understanding of the culture, mindset and political landscape of random countries that comes with an appraisal of their history. This is more important in some places than others. For example, if you are very familiar with Tang to Qing Dynasty Chinese history, you are now able to watch and appreciate the most famous movies/dramas in China, and given this is the bulk of cultural consumption, you consequently understand the Chinese psyche as well as an outsider could. Obviously an isolated example, and a simplification, but you get it.

2. Conversation Topics: This is weirdly important, but being knowledgeable about the history of other countries or regions is especially useful if you're talking to someone from a slightly obscure region. Everybody likes to talk about the time when their country was big and powerful, especially if it isn't anymore. You now have an easy way to butter up that Austrian colleague, or your Polish boss.

If you were looking for any hard skills, you're out of luck. Unless you choose to specialise in economic history or quantitative history, your skillset is going to be very soft. That just means you have to work hard to develop your own set of hard skills independently.