As the title says, I’m just curious to what opportunities I would have if I choose this path in my studies. Would going for a masters be useful? If any of you majored in history, what do you do for a living?
Don’t do it. Love history? Make it a hobby. I will get hate for this but it’s the truth and don’t let the upcoming -100 karma deceive you from the truth:
there is no to little money to be earned from history. Just make it a hobby or you will most likely suffer in life. Two of my best friends have masters in history and they are high school teachers living from one check to another. The one thing united us is our love for history, we wrote books together, the difference is i hate my real job but make 10 times more than them. They like their job but hate their lives. So don’t think of studying history unless you are certain you will be one of the 0.0001% of historians who become rich from it.
Good luck.
Edit: fixed words.
Three notes:
Check out this thread from the FAQ: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2gutcw/do_all_historians_work_in_academiamuseums_or_are/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
As you can read in the thread, there are lots of possibilities for jobs. What you personally can get comes down to what you want and how you approach your studies. You can spend college preening for academia, but you can also focus on the skills that historians require (other than just knowing history), and you can highlight those in job searches.
To answer, for my part, I got a BS in History, and I now work in the Title & Escrow industry (real property). I spend my days sifting through records to give a current owner a report on ownership and the state of the property, work with maps and touch on legal concepts. The pay can be pretty good, one you get some experience in the industry.
I'm not sure that you need only study History if you know you'll be rich, but I also don't think you're guaranteed six figure salaries by getting a different degree either.
I'm of the opinion that you get out of college what you put in and look for. You can learn how to research, synthesize information, find narrative threads in broad sets of data, and use a variety of archives and records systems, amongst other skills Historians use.
You can also just learn about old things. Which is cool, but doesn't require the cost of tuition. You can also go the distance with academics and get the PhD, but I'm not qualified to speak to that.
All said and done, there are more options than most people realize, but it takes some focus in school and thinking how to apply what you learned to potential jobs.