Unless you go to spectacular schools, get spectacular grades and network with spectacular people, please reconsider the idea of becoming a professor. The job market in the humanities has been terrible for years and years, and the future doesn't look great.

I am a humanities professor myself (not in history), but if I had to do it all over again, I would choose a different path.

If you insist, make sure to have several career paths open and know when to give up on the academic dream. I know too many people who have been adjuncting for years and years after their PhDs, living on the hope that this will be the year. Eventually, they're in their late 30s, making $20 or 30k a year with no retirement or health insurance. I did 4 myself before landing a tenure track, 2 as a post-doc.

My friend just graduated with a PhD in history from an Ivy League. He is currently an adjunct at making about $32k a year in a shitty city with very few prospects. I also have a PhD from a great institution and didn't go into academia for the very reason. You can be passionate about it and pursue it, but the life isn't glamorous. It is nothing like the movies or any pop culture representation. It is being overworked and subject to insane bureaucracy. Teaching is tough, and you oftentimes find yourself with very little resources and time to do your own work.

I know so many Phds that wish they had just taught highschool cause at least it was consistent and had better insurance. I hate being a negative Nancy, but professorship is literally one of the most romanticized jobs in the world. Its reality is quite different from what anyone thinks.

I have something for you to consider.

When I was in high school, I wanted to study military history. It was (and still is) a passion of mine. My dad pulled me aside and gave me some advice. He said "do that shit on weekends. Pick a job that provides you with the comfort and the security to follow your passions.".

I took engineering instead. It is a different kind of work, but it gives me the stability to follow my passion of history and has allowed me to develop other interests as well.

A job as a history professor would have been amazing, but when I considered the probability of me getting a role like that, it is pretty unlikely. There will be dozens, if not hundreds of people graduating in history in your year alone. Consider how many of them go on to become professors.

Do I have my dream job? No absolutely not, but I was able to choose a career that gave me more opportunities including the ability to pursue my interest in history on my own terms.

Absolutely, if this is your passuon- feel empowered to follow it, but consider there are perhaps other ways to facilitate your love of history.

You have a chance to follow your dreams and become a professor, but perhaps other options can be another way of supporting your passion instead.

A degree in history is totally worth it! It will teach you SO much about the state of humanity, critical thinking skills, and will teach you how to communicate effectively, presenting and defending arguments. There are a plethora of jobs where those skills are necessary and will be very useful. You can become a teacher, get a master's in library science, go to law school, work in HR, Work in government agencies and many more! The key is to get good internships and have a solid resume upon graduation. On the other hand consider this: I know a professor who got his bachelors in history, went to Oxford for his masters and UT Austin for his Ph.D. in Mexican-American history. He is incredibly talented. Problem is after getting his PhD he did not get an offer from any decent university to go teach. Right when he was about to give up, a modest, mostly commuter school with zero recognition hired him to be an associate professor making ~$50k. after spending almost 10+ years in education and being thousands of dollars in debt, is that worth it?

You’re clearly passionate about history, so I say go ahead and pursue it. A B.A. in history has many applications.

Most of my peers went onto law school. A handful became museum curators, archivists, and political scientists. Currently, I’m in tech because that’s where the money’s at. The career change wasn’t easy, but it also didn’t require going back to school. A degree in history doesn’t have to define you for life.

You’re smart to think about job opportunities now. As someone mentioned up-thread, if you’re not attending a highly-accredited school known for history, make top marks, and start publishing early, you’re about out of luck. The job market is dire for all PhDs and doubly so for humanities students. It’s incredibly cutthroat. Many PhDs scrambling for a handful of positions.

Academia isn’t glamorous. On top of an incredibly demanding career, you get paid pennies and constantly worry about budget cuts. (Sidebar: I worked in academia for a short while. I can attest to how grim it is.)

I’d like to encourage you to think about what sort of lifestyle you’d like when you get older. If you want work life balance, career stability, savings/disposable income, and early retirement, academia might not be the right fit.

My two cents: Double major in history and poli-sci or history and econ. History and a degree that enhances it, makes it more practical, and opens more doors for you down the road.

I'm currently working on my masters degree in Irish history, and I have plans to start a PhD in the next few years. Given the pandemic, starting a costly series of degrees with very limited job prospects on the other end is not something most people (myself included) would encourage someone to do. However, if you're truly interested in the topic and you're motivated to work hard at it, I don't think I would discourage you from doing it -- as long as you know going in what you're getting yourself into.

In my own experience, I didn't know I wanted to be a professional historian until I was halfway through my undergraduate and had spent quite a bit of time getting familiar with doing research. I don't know what your background is but I imagine you've got plenty of time to explore options in college and see what types of things interest you. If you find that writing is not your thing, then becoming a professor probably isn't for you. That being said (as other people below have pointed out) there's plenty you can do with a history degree, so I wouldn't advise against starting down that path in college. Basically, keep your options open and don't get too set on any one course. Hope that helps!

There have been some great comments in the thread already (like the link to the AHA's career paths for history majors), and there is one thing you pointed at which is important, that you love talking about history. Lecturing is certainly one most important parts of being a history professor, but this might vary depending on where you are teaching. Going for a Ph.D. and teaching at a 4-year research university is very different than teaching at a community college with an M.A. If your at a 4-year university, you may have classes of 60+ students, a teaching assistant, and many other duties outside of teaching history (administrative roles, researching and publishing, attending conferences, etc.). If your at a community college, you'll likely have smaller classes (30-40 students), have more time for mentoring, and fewer administrative obligations. I personally wanted to teach at a community college so that I'd have more time interacting with students.

Also, one other advantage you may have is that your interested in something other than U.S. history. Assuming you are thinking about teaching in the U.S., there is a shift right now towards including a more diverse curriculum; world history in particular is becoming more popular. Sometimes it takes having a specialty, like Eastern European to get your foot into the door. I was lucky to have studied Californian History in grad school and that was my ticket into a number of institutions. When thinking of where you want to teach, see what colleges and university are nearby and you may be surprised what they teach; I was surprised to see Russian History at a community college, but then heard that the community had a significant Eastern European immigrant population, and a professor who specialized in it, that help make it possible.

Growing up, I wanted to be a history professor so I got a BA in history. I did an honors program that was designed to be prep program for the PhD process. My advisor was awful and bullied me to tears every time we met so I decided a Phd probably wasn’t for me. At least in the US, academia has a downside where there are some people who are very condescending and rude but it doesn’t get talked about openly. What I did decide to do was get a library/information science degree and I LOVE my job. It has opened some incredible doors for me (I worked at the Library of Congress in grad school!).

My husband also has a BA in history and is an attorney.

Regardless of your career path, I would encourage you to get a history undergraduate degree. It’s been incredibly useful to me in how I think about the world and for me, that’s worth more than any job. But as far as jobs are concerned, a history degree is widely applicable.

If you want to do research in history (a requirement if you want an academic degree) then look up university programs for history -> names of professors -> research topics, and read some of the literature. If you speak French I highly recommend looking at the lectures on the Collège de France (https://www.college-de-france.fr/site/en-savoirs/index.htm) both due to their quality and contemporarility for cutting edge historical research.

There is a company in northern Virginia that might have some student or internship openings for someone of your background and interests. It is not academic, but is one of the largest research operations on the planet, makes good maps, employs speakers and readers of many languages, and does a variety of other things. :-) Whether that is of interest to you or not, it should serve as an example of looking for places where a deep understanding of history is useful, rather than looking for places that are just about history. Widen your horizons!