I have always had a borderline obsessive interest in History. At age 18 I went to college with a plan to study archaeology. This was something I had dreamed of my entire life & never really questioned if it was practical or if I’d be good at it. I just really wanted to do it and at one point was going to just go for it. Unfortunately I did miserably that year. After turning 13 I just sucked at school and I don’t know why I thought I could do well in college back then. I ended up dropping out, never went to class. My anxiety kind of took over everything that year. That bad year was related to issues with mental health and maturity, and I was too nervous to go back on to a real campus for many years after that. I just started working right away after dropping out and the bills started comin in. I got so sick of doing call-center jobs by age 21 that I ended up going back to a local tech school for something I felt was practical, paralegal studies. I did very well and on paper I still have a 3.9 GPA. I quit again after 1 year around age 23 when I discovered I didn’t actually even need a degree in my state to be a paralegal AND I was already making more money than the average paralegal in my state. It had been intended to be a career creating money move.
Now I’m 27 & have been working in property management for a few years and it’s honestly a shit show. I felt it was practical & honest work when I started. I keep telling people I love my job, but I think I just love having some sense of stability & purpose right now (I had a rough time between ages 23 and 25 with a bad breakup and gaining weight and all sorts of self inflicted garbage where I would quit a job after 3-6 months and then be unemployed for 2 months at a time). I’m scared the lack of structure and organization at my current company is making me stupid, honestly. I’m scared it’s killing my work ethic and turning me into a bad worker for the long run. I don’t feel I’m gaining anything besides a paycheck.
I’m still doing much better with taking care of myself but I still feel like I’m missing out. I’ve spent most of my twenties fucking around/up & I’ve never pursued anything I’m passionate about. Even in my early twenties I’d go “well by the time I’m done I’ll be almost 30”. I’ve accepted that working hard doesn’t automatically mean you’re not poor. And for as hard as I work, I want to give myself one more chance at doing what I did @ age 18 with pursuing something that is probably impractical simply because I think it could make me happy.
I don’t know that I want to do archaeology again. There was a lot more digging and math involved than I realized before that 1 year at college haha. But I think what always appealed to me was being at these places I’d read about and seeing and examining items and trash and whatever from cultures and people I’ve learned about. What are some careers/paths I could look into that would let me do this, if it’s even a possibility? I don’t care so much about the amount of money I’d be making. Eating and having a roof over my head would be nice but being rich is something I’m not too concerned with right now. I’d love to end up studying or living in other parts of the world someday if I could. Any insight or advice would be very appreciated.
While /u/Gankom linked a very relevant thread by JimeDorje I felt it kind of necessary to add onto the thread and the ideas.
Often times there is this idea that a History degree means you have to teach or at the end be part of Academia at large. There does exist a separate path that is definitely a large part of History but is often sidelined which is the methodology or discipline of Public History. Public History is a blanket term that encompasses all of History outside of Academia. It means teaching History to the Public or assisting in that endeavor. The most common usage of the term is used to describe Museum Studies. Basically being part of a museum and helping out within that framework. The reason I bring this field up is a large part of the field is the idea of curatorial work, which is finding objects to fit within a museum or going to places to find collections. There is also a small field of restoration that could be very interesting as well.
While this may be more practical than unpractical it would be worth exploring as a possible option for you. There is another subset that deals with Digital History as well that involves marrying Technology with Technology, mainly "Big Data" and visualizations and history. If you are interested in that I can definitely outline that as well.
The best resource on this career path would be the National Council on Public History. And if you have any follow-up questions on jobs within the Sphere of History feel feel to comment or Private Message me!
Cheers!
While I can't help with everything, you may get some good advice out of this recent thread from /u/JimeDorje. They address some very similar feelings.