“What can I do with a history degree?” It is a question I fielded from thousands of students while I served as a faculty advisor in our university history program. Now that I direct an institution that actually hires people with history degrees, the question comes from job seekers as well as their parents, grandparents, and spouses.
Here’s the best, most honest answer I can give: A history degree is a wonderful way to begin a career and a terrible place to end it. In the current professional landscape and job market, you should plan on an advanced degree from the outset. Don’t earn a PhD and then look for alternatives; identify what you want to do and follow a pathway to the destination. With this approach, you’ll be better able to position yourself for successful learning experiences along the way.
Rather than thinking about career options as “in the academy” or “alternatives,” it’s more helpful to consider the broad field of history as a large family, like engineering or medicine, with many sub-specialties–teaching, archives, museums, preservation, publishing, and so on. Specialties within the history family offer a host of fulfilling careers, most* of which require an advanced degree with a targeted specialization. Starting salaries range from $30,000 to $55,000. The American Historical Association hosts a webpage of career resources. The history department at the University of Illinois maintains a list of famous history majors.
Here are some of the most popular specialties within the history family, sorted by levels of required education:
1. A Bachelor’s Degree + State Certification
- Elementary or secondary school teacher. Certification may be obtained as part of an undergraduate program or through a separate process after graduation. Requirements are defined by individual states.
2. A Master’s Degree with a Field-Specific Specialty
- Librarian. Complete a masters of library and information studies/sciences (MLIS) for diverse opportunities in public, school, and private libraries.
- Archivist. Complete a master’s degree in public history or library science and then obtain professional certification through the Academy of American Archivists; additional certificates are available from the Society of American Archivists.
- Museum curator, registrar, or educator. A master’s degree in museum studies provides a broad introduction to history, art, and science museums.
- Historic preservation. Look for a master’s-level program that introduces diverse and highly specialized work with cultural resource management, architectural history, landscape history, urban planning, geographic information systems, or archeology. Some public history programs have a preservation concentration.
- Artifact conservation. Look for a program and an apprenticeship that introduces highly specialized work with rare books, paper documents, photographs, textiles, artwork.
- Editing and publishing. Opportunities exist for historical documentary editing as well as scholarly publishing (university presses).
3. A Doctoral Degree
- Private secondary school teacher. Private schools increasingly hire more educated historians to bring prestige to their offerings; state certification still required.
- Community college faculty. Will carry a large course load, publishing may be optional.
- University professor. Advancement will depend on scholarly research contributions, also expect to teach and carry out service within the university administration.
- Researcher/writer. Many federal agencies hire historians to prepare internal analyses and briefings; develop an expertise in military, political, diplomatic, or policy history.
- Contract work. Historians may be hired to research, write, consult, interpret, testify in courtrooms, film and television, gaming, advertising; a handful of large firms predominate but individual contractors also operate.
4. Professional Degree in Another Field
- Lawyer. Undergraduate training in history provides a foundation in evidence and argumentation; many undergraduate programs offer a pre-law concentration.
- Physician. Undergraduate training in history provides empathy and an understanding of cultures that fosters good bedside manners; pre-med coursework in the sciences required.
* A bachelor’s degree in history can open the door to internships or temporary positions for which an advanced degree will be required for professional advancement. The skills obtained in a history bachelor’s program may also be applied in other fields such as research analysis, hospitality, human resources, office administration, and banking.
