If you consider the possibility of a multiverse, with an infinite number of different universes existing simultaneously, then no, it's not impossible. But in this universe, it's pretty much impossible.

Teaching high school isn't the "only" way to get a job teaching history, but it's by far the most viable in 2021. The traditional academic career track of getting a PhD, getting a tenure-track job, publishing books, getting tenure, and living happily ever after, for all intents and purposes, does not exist anymore.

History enrollments are way down across the board, so colleges and universities simply aren't hiring many new professors, tenure track or otherwise, and when their existing professors retire, they're filling those spots with adjuncts instead of replacing them with new hires. The number of PhDs being produced each year is something like three times the number of new job openings every year, so each job gets literally hundreds of applicants, and the majority of the tenure track jobs go to graduates of a few elite programs. Even exploitative community college jobs, where you get stuck with a massive teaching load for poverty-level pay, get hundreds of applicants.

Your odds of actually getting any sort of college teaching job beyond a miserable adjunct job are very small, and no amount of passion or hard work on your part can overcome those large-scale, long-term trends. I'm not trying to kill your dreams here, but it's better for you to know the truth up front, rather than finding out the hard way like a lot of us did.

I can get the easy bit out of the way. It is not possible to teach high school and do graduate classes. Your coursework would be demanding, and most of the time your tuition being waved is contingent on you holding some sort of assistant instructorship. Additionally, the only way I got my dissertation done at the end was putting very long hours in daily. I was working from the moment I got up until late at night. That sort of workload would not allow your to devote the time necessary to teach high school students to the best of your ability, and that is not fair to them.

Now, let me give you some advice that I wish I understood years ago. I was like you. I wanted to be a professor. I was only passionate about history. I went to grad school, I got my PhD, and the job market was absolutely terrible, and Covid is only making it worse. Then I started to get work outside of the academy. I realized something. I work from 8 to 4. Then i go home and I do what I want on the weekends. The grind really never stops as a professor. You need to work weekends, all breaks, etc to get the publications necessary for tenure (assuming you are lucky enough to get a job). That sounded great to me at one point. But now that I have a steady job, free time, a wife, and I own my house in the city I love. All of those things may need to be sacrificed for academia. Now that I’m older, I realize that you should not rely on your labor for fulfillment. I know many, many colleagues in my position, and everyone is happier. This isn’t to say that you can’t find happiness or fulfillment in academia, but it’s not necessarily the first place I’d look. History will always be there. You can always enjoy history. Hell, I enjoy history more now that I just read it for pleasure than when I was doing it full time. I am reading about periods and regions that I never could. I would be locked into the Middle Ages and whatever I was teaching.

I’m not saying my experience is gospel, but give it some thought.

Hey OP, I too once thought that teaching history at the University level was the only thing I wanted to do. I'm passionate about history and when I was in grad school and teaching a seminar, it felt so right and rewarding. However, life in academia is incredibly taxing, and the chances of that hard work paying off are becoming more and more unattainable. Most PhD's I know work low paying contract teaching positions.

I wish that, in my youth, I had been more aware of jobs that let you work with history every day that aren't in teaching. After I finished grad school in history, I enrolled in a Master's degree in heritage conservation (I'm in Canada, folks south of the border call it historic preservation). Now I work for my province as a heritage planner and I get to work on all sorts of interesting conservation projects. Colleagues from history now work at museums, research firms, law firms, and historic sites. These jobs usually require a specialized degree or diploma, which are way less stressful than PhD's. If you're working on a history BA right now, I recommend trying to obtain an employable skill set by taking courses in something like communications, administration, marketing, graphic design, etc. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE the value of volunteering at a museum! That type of experience means a lot to employers. When applying for jobs after graduation, employers were far more interested in those experiences than anything I learned in-class. When you're done your BA, look for graduate certificates or Masters degrees in fields like archival science, museum studies, or heritage conservation. They all let you work with history, but are far more employable than a history degree.

Hello OP-

I really sympathize- I am a newly-minted PhD student and I struggled a lot with the decision about whether or not to apply for PhD programs when I was a BA. I'll give you my two cents (some of which will have been said by other people here)

When I was an undergraduate, no one told me how difficult applying to grad school was. Profs all encouraged me to apply and I was won over. I didn't get into any of the PhD programs I applied to, and I only got into one MA program. When I got there, it was a total shock. Instead of telling us about the *noble pursuit of academe*, they actively discouraged us from applying for PhD programs.

Some of the home truths they told us:

• There are fewer tenure-track teaching positions every year, and more graduates every year
• We have reached "peak student"- the number of college enrollees will begin to decline and universities will begin to shrink/close
• PhD's are long. Many people don't finish. Many people who do finish don't finish on time. It is very stressful and takes years out of your life
• You will be straight up poor. Many (if not most) grad stipends are not a living wage
• You will probably teach a "tier" lower than the tier of school you attend- e.g., if you attend a Top-20 institution, you might teach at a large state school. If you attend a large state school, you might teach at a regional state school or community college

Idk how close you are to graduating, but they also gave us some COVID-related cautions

• Because of COVID there is less funding for (primarily state) universities, and thus they can fund less PhD candidates
• Because of COVID there were people without work/other opportunities who decided to apply for grad programs
• People tend to go back to school during recessions in general

Because of this, there are *even more people* than normal competing for *even fewer* spots- and this glut will be felt down the line in the job market in a few years.

*All of that said* I did end up going on to doctoral study (against my professor's better judgement). This all comes down to a personal cost-benefit analysis. The important thing is *not* to weigh the chance of a tenure track position against making NFTs or whatever else you'd do in those 5-7 years. Because since the chance of landing a tenure track position is so low, it will always lose in comparison to other opportunities.

Instead, you need compare *getting paid to study history* (albeit a very low wage) for half a decade and then *coming out with a credential that will get you a job* (even if it is not a job as a professor) to other opportunities. While you're a doctoral student, you'll also have the opportunity to be a TA in undergraduate classes, and so you'll get a taste of teaching. If that sounds good, then go ahead!

It's also important to say that PhD and high school teacher are not the only options available. My wife (who has a history BA) is in getting her masters in library science with a focus in archives. There's opportunities in libraries, museums, local history centers. Jobs are out there.

I think the last thing I'll say is that anecdotally, morale among teachers seems to be low right now. I have a lot of friends who went into education who say that they like their work, but have some complaints about administration, student behavior, etc. At least some of this is pandemic related. That's to say, teaching might not be so bad, you're just hearing from the voices that had it the worst, at the worst time.

History, English Lit, Cultural Studies teacher who taught in Minnesota here. You will never have enough time to do what you want if you teach high school. Prep, planning, teaching, grading, etc. will take up all your time--12-16 hours a day (especially if you are research-minded like I was). You can easily get sucked down a rabbit hole because it's all so interesting or you found a discrepancy that needs rectifying, etc. Besides, don't go into Primary or Secondary teaching unless you REALLY love kids and have a good handle on children and adolescent psychology.

Go to all the evening college lectures you can and start mingling with the history professors. Ann Walter (Chinese History), George Sheets (Classical Greek Studies), and Tom Clayton (Classical Civilization) at the University of Minnesota are extremely approachable and may be able to guide you to the appropriate people to get a research gig at the U. Good luck!

P.S. You don't mention what area of history you would like to specialize in.

Speaking as someone who is finishing a PhD now, the market is tight. Most of my colleagues have gone on to teach outside of history departments. However, I know very few who aren’t involved in education in some way and the majority who teach mostly find that work fulfilling (as much as any work can be fulfilling). I agree with the other comments that you need to be clear-eyed about the prospects. On the other hand, speaking from this end of a long process, adjuncting or working the CC circuit doesn’t seem like a step down from TAing. The reality, speaking as a labor historian, is that college in the US is an industry and teachers are industrial workers now. I’ve told colleagues that some positions are going to be akin to line-factory work in terms of the real impact you’ll feel like you have on individual students. The university’s goal isn’t shaping minds or training intellectuals or whatever their mottos say (and what I personally think tenured faculty are most appropriate for training). Universities train workers and that’s the real working conditions on a college campus. If you go to grad school, that’s where you’ll start and you’ll build a perspective on your prospects and future from there. I guess it’s worth ending on a note that you’ll be in school for 5-10 years more if you commit fully to grad school, so who knows what the world will look like or how you’ll look at it in that time.

Specifically regarding teaching and going to school: there are programs set up to specifically cater to high school teachers (the MA at UW Milwaukee is an example). The courses are at night and meant as continuing education as much as prep for a career change. But as far as I know they do exist.

Long story short, you’re doing the right thing by asking about this beforehand.

There is much good advice in this thread about why the academic route is a bad career choice.

The only two things I would add are these:

(1) You do not need to be an academic to write books about things that interest you. If you want to read, research and write about history, you can do that in your spare time while a 'proper job'pays the bills.

(2) Being an academic or a high school history teacher are not the only jobs where you can use history. Consider things like defence and security analyst (if you have a background in military history), working in the heritage sector (I don't know what you have where you live, but we have organisations like Historic Environment Scotland and National Trust for Scotland which do have some interesting jobs), civil service (a historian's skills of weighing evidence, digesting complex information, and writing well, can be useful), and international development (you can't help fix West Africa, unless you have some grasp of its history), and policy / think tank / political work. For many of these types of jobs, a history PhD is less useful than a qualification that helps transform your skills into something more practical.

In the last year, I have taken short courses on Sharia and Islamic Law, Reporting Human Rights, Introduction to Development Management, and Project Management. I was able to get out of an academic job and into a job with an international organisation, where I am still using my expertise - but instead of writing about it in journal articles that no one will read, I am now writing about it in policy briefs. Making that change tripled my salary.

It is a big world out there.

Hey OP, just thought I’d throw my two-cents in as a middle and high school history teacher.

I got both my BA and MA in history, but I also studied secondary education on a teacher licensure track in undergrad. I can’t speak to being a professor or getting a PhD, as I’ve obviously never done it, but I’d urge you to think thoroughly about whether high school teaching would be an option for you.

For me, I love history. I find it fascinating and I think there is so much to learn about it and from it. That said, first and foremost education is my passion. Now, I’m not saying that you had to have studied education in undergrad to become a teacher, as plenty of people enter the field and discover their passion for education later. I do think that you’d want to reflect on exactly why you may want to become a secondary teacher. I’ve seen some teachers whose main drive is their passion for their subject become frustrated and burned out because the kids don’t love it like they do. The fact is, you have to be okay with the idea that most of your students won’t have a passion for history like you (some will, but it’s maybe 1 or 2 a year across all your classes).

A good teacher can get their kids interested and engaged with the class and get them to learn some valuable lessons along the way, but even the best teachers can’t force a passion for a subject on kids. You also have to be okay with the fact that many of your kids won’t remember every historical topic you taught them. Instead, you have to finding meaning in what you’re doing in other ways. For me it’s about A) hoping to imbue them with a general interest in history and recognition of its importance, B) teaching valuable skills like critical thinking, writing, argumentation, etc. that they can carry with them beyond school, C) inspiring students to want to be lifelong learners, and D) the realization that many students will never take a history class beyond high school, so what we can help them discover about history may become their lasting impression of it (no pressure or anything lol)

Teaching high school is also about A LOT more than just your content. In addition to teaching your content, you are also a mentor to tons of kids who, at times, may need you to be more than just a content teacher. You’ll end up teaching many life lessons as you get to know kids and (ideally) serve as a role model for them. As much as my job is lesson planning, teaching, and grading, it is is also things like having a life chat with a student after class because they are seeking advice from a trusted adult or getting to know kids as individuals so that they feel valued and seen at school.

I’m not saying you can’t be capable of doing and enjoying these things, perhaps you are and that’s great! I just wanted to bring them up for you to consider as you reflect on your options. Ultimately, teaching high school history isn’t just teaching history.

High school teaching and college teaching are pretty unrelated. It seems like you haven’t thought this plan out enough.

If you are fine with getting a degree that might not ever pay dividends, by all means go to grad school, but the market sucks at the moment and I personally (I’m a literature guy so not exactly the same) would never recommend this profession to anyone given current market conditions.

Remember that you can always read books on your own time.

Hey OP, you might miss out on this late post, but I wanted to mention something that I haven't seen talked about in the replies - mental health.

I don't have a Phd, but my wife does (in Classical archaeology) and I have not seen a person more changed by an experience than she was by her Phd. The pressure that it puts you under is horrific, she became an anxiety crippled mess and has been in therapy for issues directly stemming from her Phd for about 4 years now.

Firstly you are your own boss: the motivation to work has to come from within and that can very quickly turninto self-recrimination any time you spend not working.

Secondly the environment: you will be surrounded by high achievers who you know will all be competing for the same jobs and grant applications as you. The language that surrounds these applications is all about being the best of the best of the best. It is almost tailor made to give you self esteem issues.

Thirdly is the publishing: in order to get anywhere you need to publish, and putting your work out in front of peer reviewers and then the academic public at large to be picked at is hard on the mental health.

I am not exagerating when I say that every individual I know well enough to talk about such things with who has a Phd suffers from serious mental health problems and that this is something I think isn't being talked about enough

History BA here fwiw.

I echo other comments, but I think if you're interested in history and DON'T want to teach high school, there are some other avenues that are at least within the universe of what you like to study.

You're currently in college; I would get experience or even directly emphasize archaeology, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and/or cultural resource management coursework.

It's not easy to get the work these lead to, and you're often trying to work in the public sector with these. But getting work in the field of archaeology, cultural resource management, historic preservation, etc I think is a LOT easier than being a professor, and your history degree could be valuable in those contexts if you're willing to complement it.

Especially if you intern with an organization like the Student Conservation Association or American Conservation Experience during/after college. Many of their programs are related to these, and they often provide housing and/or are AmeriCorps positions.

edit:

If you're willing to take these steps, I think you can be competitive and work broadly with the stuff you care about. Even at the federal level in the United States, if you are lucky enough to do a Pathways/Recent Graduate program, depending on your record and experience, you can be competitive. And even more so if you are willing/able to join the military, do an AmeriCorps Vista service year, or serve in the Peace Corps to get NCE, making you more competitive in federal hiring. This stuff isn't easy, but as I said, I think it's leagues more realistic than trying to become a tenure-track professor in the current environment.

To be a little outside the scope here - there is absolutely space in the historical post-graduate world, but it’s a cross-disciplinary/more-specialised history. A shocking amount of Anglo-historians are mono-lingual, bilingual in very common languages, and study absolutely-overdone fields.

If you were fluent in Japanese and became an expert in US-Japanese historical relations, there would absolutely be space for you in a Japanese university. A historian with a strong background in science or economics would be able to find funding and a teaching position.

Look abroad, look outside history departments, and consider what the market and society is pivoting towards and consider whether that is something you are interested in and will do the work to make it your career.

My opinion? Universities crave relevance, it gets them attention, prestige, international students, and funding. You’re looking at Big Tech (we desperately need historians with a grip on technology and markets to talk to us about Silicon Valley), China (learn Chinese, be content with working and living in China for a long time), India (same as above), health (science degree minimum), and climate change.

Just have a look at how universities position and market themselves, and go from there. It is still absolutely a struggle with no guarantees, but it maximises your chances of success.

Things to avoid (imo): military history, most US/UK history, feminist/queer history, Napoleon/World Wars (this goes under military history but deserves to be pointed out specifically), classical greece and Rome

Not cause the above aren’t valuable, or don’t have exciting research being conducted in them all the time, or that you wouldn’t have a valuable contribution to make - but they’ve been established for a while. Teachers and people with qualifications in those fields exist. In a discipline with a shrinking budget, you want to move to something that has a smaller pool of eligible candidates but the highest demand possible.

Good luck! And there’s nothing wrong with teaching history in school - honestly some high schools have some college-level history (esp. international colleges) that might scratch that itch for you.

Good luck!

While I don't want to paint an unrealistically rosy picture, OP, please note that the numbers people have been throwing around here are not only wildly hyperbolic, but blatantly contradicted by the evidence.

Don't take my word for it. Check out the 2021 AHA jobs report. You can view it here:https://www.historians.org/ahajobsreport2021

The latest statistics are for c. 1,000 PhDs being awarded, and about 500 jobs being advertised, a year.

That is nowhere near the hypothetical figures people in this thread are using of odds of 10,000 to 1 of landing a job. The numbers people are giving (without evidence) are off by multiple orders of magnitude.

I would ask my fellow historians to look carefully at the evidence, as we should be an evidence-based discipline. While we should not be fostering naivety, we should likewise not be dissuading smart people from even considering an academic career in history. We have both an obligation to the evidence, and an obligation to ensure our discipline continues rather than succumbing to brain drain and despair.

Maybe it's not what you have in mind, but I've seen online courses of a lot of things. Maybe you could design your classes about a certain History topic and upload them to platforms like Udemy, Coursera and EdX for which you could charge for the certification in the meanwhile.

Best of luck and successes to you.

Unless you get into a top tier program and are funded I would stay away from getting a history PhD. I have a history BA and almost wound up applying to PhD programs (no MA) but didn’t have any luck. If you go so far as to get a PhD, you want to be able to get a tenure track job. If this is likely off the table for most phds before even graduating, probably good idea to stay way. I’m an attorney now which is also a career path fraught with issues but I’m making good money now at a good firm so getting a history BA wound up alright for me.