Is getting a History degree worth it? Will majoring is history fuck up my life?

If you live in USA, you should seriously consider not going to college. Save the money, buy history books, work, read history books, learn history, ??? profit.

This. Though I would suggest if you go to college, stick to the community college and online colleges to save your money or work that financial aid racket.

I actually dont want to go to collage, but because i am in the top of my class and i have overbearing parents, i feel like im pressured into going.

Very well.
The first major helped me get a good job and quality of life, the second furthered my hobby, and was completely unneeded but extremely gratifying.

Are they footing the bill 100%? Also, if you wait a little bit until you are like 22 you get mad gov grants for college.

Also, don't let your parents pressure you. Your life is too short to live with that kind of regret.

They will help pay a little bit, we are not rich nor poor, so not much financial aid form uncle sam either

Any academics in the room? I know there is a ton of stigma associated with academia nowadays, but is passion enough to carry me through graduate school?

A lot of passion and willingness to work hard. Humanities BA's are notoriously low-effort but Grad school is a full time job. You have to really love the subject more than almost anything else.

The fact is if you remain in Academia, unless you can somehow market the books you write successfully (like Ehrman), you will make less money and work harder than if you had just gone into accounting like Mom wanted.

Whatever you do, don't fucking go until you know what you do and have a plan for when you're finished. Take some time out, work and think it over. Or start a business and never go to college

Hmm, I guessed as much. I wonder if there is any merit to having a career first and then doing a PhD later to satisfy my life dream? Damn, here's to hoping academia changes for the better.

>here's to hoping academia changes for the better.
What do you take issue with exactly? The political climate? The lack of money?

Academia is filled with the kind of drama normally reserved for middle school girls. You're going to have to prepare yourself for that. You will have to spend years working adjunct positions with low salary and little job security before you have any chance of getting tenure.

This is true, and tenure chasing is a bitch in and of itself. People publishing useless but flashy papers in an attempt to garner favor with whatever university they're working for.

Good question, as I haven't experienced it for myself yet. The lack of money doesn't faze me as long as I don't starve to death, but perhaps the prospect of writing papers that no one will ever read or take seriously and working for an uncertain future does intimidate me a little. Maybe these are unfounded fears, but do you have experience in pursuing an academic career, user?

Please spend at least a year living on your own before deciding you don't care about the money.

It's something I plan on doing but I've only read about grad school experiences. I'm not there yet.

Academia seems like it can be pretty stressful and demanding. A lot of feelings of unworthiness and imposter syndrome but I suppose that comes with anything competitive. I don't so much like the idea of marrying myself to an institution with tenure either, although I recognize why it's there.

Despite all the bullshit I can't really see myself doing anything else. I suppose that's an important question to ask yourself.

Im in History, but not in USA, in Europe, we dont have that thing of 'majors' and 'minors'.
I have 0 regrets about studying History, literally none, I enjoy doing it already knowing that theres like few to zero chances to get a job with that.
Between studying something I dislike and then working on it and studying what I love and then find a job unrelated, of course my choice is the second.

Dude, I know how you feel. Apologies in advance for blog shit.

I was the first of my dad's kids to graduate high school after my brothers messed up their education. I spent three years kind of messing around, trying to find myself and mooching off my mom until she told me that I had to either get a job or go to school if I wanted to live with her. I chose school. Since I liked history, I decided to major in history

Honestly, I feel like it's only been worth it to learn how to do things like write a research paper. I would say that the FA has given me plenty of money for books, but with the internet and cheap/free e-books, I'm not sure how true that has been as I have spent lots of money on books just to realize I could have gotten all them for free on bookzz. But I suppose it has helped me in some ways to get a feel on what I want to do with my life, as much as money, whether earned or received, does usually help with that. But not having a regular job can sometimes make you feel useless, as can being dependent on others for literally everything. Sometimes I even feel like a fraud in that I have to put on airs at family get-togethers so nobody catches on to my scam.

I can't help but feel like I really missed the boat in life. If I could change things, I would have tried to learn some more practical skills before I got out of highschool that I could get paid for, maybe worked to get a good scholarship when I was still young enough, and figured out more clearly what specific non-STEM fields I was interested in specializing in and whether they'd be just hobbies or careers. Might have also invested some of my wages then in some art lessons too. Sometimes I feel just really miserable and stunted as a person, so much so that I wish I could just go back to the relative security and ease of my normal NEET/bohemian loser lifestyle

Just do yourself a favor, user, and don't end up like me. Best advice I can give you is to get the fuck off this website.

It won't get you a decent job but neither will anything else.

Fair enough. I'm on a student grant that requires me to work once I graduate, maybe that'll show me the true horrors of living an independent life.
Kind of the same feeling here. Always wanted to be a historian since I was little, and it doesn't help that my family has its fair share of academics, albeit from a different time and place. I also personally feel that the area I'm interested in is important and significant, but everyone thinks that, right?

I just need the balls to stand up to my parents.....

If you really love it, go for it. Don't expect to be making mountains of cash, but it will be more fulfilling than if you go for something based on materialist desire

this

too real /

Did the BA, thought for sure I wanted to do a phd. Did an MA right after and life circumstances/other shit conspired to make me a depressed piece of garbage for the whole thing.

Convinced myself I didn't want to to a phd, have been doing regular jobs between bouts of unemployment for a few years now. It's time to go back to school.

I know it's not for everybody but if you feel strongly about it and are clear-eyed from the start about how fucked you're likely to get (and if you're a singular scumfuck like me who isn't going to end having to support anybody else in the forseeable future) then I've increasingly come around to 's position.

I'm fine with and at regular work except for that little nagging feeling that it's time to blow my brains out that only magnifies the longer I'm at a job I don't care about.

I'll put up with being an infinite adjunct if it means I can wring some genuine fulfillment out of my life.

This is a damn good point too. Roommate from MA/friend from highschool did what he was supposed to and the got the programming degree along with the high-paid EA job straight out of grad. Now EA's 'centralizing' his team on the other side of the country so he's sol. Even the people living the dream are usually on borrowed time.

meant to quote

Anyways, OP, consider studying in Britain or Ireland, like for a master's or so, it will save you plenty of money. Also, US student debt can't be collected if you're abroad, isn't it?

How much did the tuition for the history component cost you? (ie, couldn't you have just read a few books cheaper?)

I majored in history and I've been working in business for almost five years. Now I've taken a turn for the worse and decided to become a teacher for various reasons. I would honestly recommend majoring in something more practical and minoring in History if you really like it. Whatever you decide make sure to use your school for all its worth. Take internships in another state or country, study abroad, work harder than everyone else in your classes, and maintain a solid relationship with your professors because a good academic network might be invaluable in the future.

Archival and records managements jobs actively seek out history majors, same with teaching. If you don't want to be stuck in a glorified library or teach shit heads, don't. If you want the former, you're probably going to want to get a master's degree unless you want to be stuck as an assistant for 5 years instead of becoming an actual record manager or archivist after 2 years getting an MLS degree.

t. Archival technician

Can you describe your job a bit and explain the path that led to it? Working in a glorified library honestly seems like a comfy life.

I know a guy at my state's Supreme Court who has a history degree, he's not super high up but it's a much better job than most people. I'm not sure exactly how he transitioned into that job, I've only met him a couple times.

I work for a college library archive. Essentially, all I do is sort and file papers donated to the college that are either relevant to the archive or belong to former prestigious alumni. Since I'm not qualified for preservation work, I can't do anything with non-document collections outside of cataloging or creation of finding aids. How I ended up in my position was I took a class on archival theory and practice which had "lab work" (essentially an internship at the college library except I paid them to do their work) and I did another internship at the college archive when I was a senior. 2 months after graduation, the college archive tech quit and I applied and got the job. In all likelihood, I'm going to leave and get an MLS here in the next few years once my undergrad loans are paid off to have better employment opportunities. To describe the job more in depth

>archive accepts donated document collection from say a congressmen or senator that was an alumni
>I got through said document collection and toss useless shit and look for stuff related to bills the person was attached to
>put the trimmed document collection into archival quality folders and boxes
>catalog the new collection and put a finding aid on the website
>rinse repeat
Also responsible for records management at the university which just means taking the college paper trail and securely getting rid of shit that they can legally get rid of as soon as it's time to do so.

>tfw majoring in history or humanities wouldn't be a problem if we went FULL COMMUNISM

That's funny because I'm a file clerk and your job sounds fucking identical to what I do in the private sector. Hopefully you make more than the shitty 27k that I do. I've thought about library sciences but I really don't know what the more complex jobs in that field entail.

35 as an assistant. If I had a master's then the common salary is 40-50 annually. That's better pay than a professorship. In terms of records management, all I really do is just tell college file clerks (student employees) to bring shit over so we can send it to a waste depository. My actual archival work usually requires hours of historical research on top of going through the document collection. But yeah, sorting and filing is pretty much the simplification of it. It's not a difficult job by any means, but sometimes the research can be fucking painstaking and a lot of times the document collections are fucking massive.

So heres my situation
>Bout to go to college
>Love history, but know a degree wont make me much money
>Parents footing the bill for first 4 years
>Love objects and museum things, artifacts, weapons, tools, etc
im thinking about archaeology instead of history so that i can handle artifacts and such in museums (might have a connect with the HMNS). Also considering double majoring with something practical, business perhaps, or maybe even some sort of engineering/science (im decent at math, just hate it)
Any suggestions?

my only advice is that business doesn't necessarily qualify as practical. In my experience a general business degree from a non-elite business school is less useful than a lot of other shit.

But none of my business degree having friends could write worth a shit so maybe coupling it with something like history that'll help you develop those skills is the way to go. Case studies are such a goddamn joke though.

I'm I'd actually recommend going Public History over Archaeology. You'd have just as much chance handling artifacts or working in a museum, if not more so since archaeologists generally don't generally work in museums and instead work for archaelogical research institutes.

>top of class
ivy league or gtfo desu
prestige of school > degree for job prospects
history majors can easily go into finance or other employable sectors if you're @ top school & take relevant electives
that or just go to law school if you're @ shit undergrad and do well

this. avoid humanities if you're not @ a top school w/ near-guaranteed job prospects or are not freeloading off of your parents
lmao
join the econ bandwagon or go with engineering
this, undergrad business is shit tier unless you're at wharton

Go for econ major, history minor, try to do a master's in economic history or something.

Contact any expert at the uni to see if you can do a more useful degree while doing history courses along the way.

If you want to do full time history, then, by all means, get a history degree. Remember university should be an experiment to find out what is right for you in life, career wise

if you're good at it...get straight A's...get scholarships for grad-school/get into good/cheap instate grad-school. (MBA/law)

also during your summers pick up a teaching/EMT certs, just in case.

the point of college is to get good grades and have fun, so if you can get good grades in history, yeah.

i went to community college for 2 years, thought i wanted to be a teacher....transferred to get my B.A and said fuck it and became a history major.

it was great and i enjoyed it. BUT i did get rejected from graduate school and ended up taking some random job logging video.

but through my training in history and video training i got a job as a producer in DC as a producer in politics. so i guess it all kinda worked out.

you can really do anything you want with a history degree.

Only if you become a teacher. It's not too bad if you don't mind moving to the ends of the Earth to find a job

You can always sell your soul to the civil service like I did!

Real talk.

You can certainly combine that degree with other things. Going for a master's in library science after getting either a bachelor's or a master's qualifies you for some good stuff. You could possibly work at a museum.

Financial Aid is a glorious thing. When the US stopped paying my tuition, Texas paid the rest. Not to mention the scholarships I received. I'm about to finish my master's degree and I haven't taken out a single loan.

I'm . It seems already beat me to my usual library science spiel.

Basically this. That being said, most decent jobs nowadays tend to require a nonspecific bachelor's degree. A history degree will make you just as qualified for those jobs as anything else. There are plenty of stats out there saying more people get employed with liberal arts degrees than STEM, and it's because of those kinds of requirements. If you plan on going that route, history is a good choice if you like it and are realistic about your options.

It also helps to have useful skills. I know a guy who went into IT after getting a history degree.

Archaeology grad student here. Make sure you know what archaeology is and if you like it before making that decision. It's not just history with stuff you can handle. It's an entirely different field with radically different ways of looking at things. I initially planned on going for history, but after discovering archaeology really took a disliking to the field's theory and methods. So, make sure you know what to expect.

Also, having an archaeology degree isn't necessarily going to give you an advantage in a museum context unless you have a lot of experience. In general, archaeologists learn field methods and things like that (I'm specifically volunteering a lot at a museum to get experience to round myself out). If you really want to gt into museums, museum studies/museology would be a better choice.

Depends. Do you want to pursue graduate school or law school? Do you plan to dual major or pursue professional training in something as well as having your history degree?

Majoring in History isn't a bad choice, but not distinguishing yourself on a resume is.

Ive pretty much accepted at this point that I'm not suited for the competitive job market
Ive resigned myself to just being the most well read/academic, obnoxious retail worker there is.

Im in the process of getting a history degree @ UCB

its either law school or grad school for me

dont fall for the stem or die meme, a history degree will still be advantageous for you in the workforce, the issue is its not specialized so youd have to find an industry to get into, develop connections/experience and then leverage your degree

Just double major in Econ and History

There somewhat respectable

That's why I'm choosing Economics. Due to a lot of expectations, I can't "just" be a teacher or librarian, although I'd be happier with those. I'm okay with doing math, but I fucking hate it. I've been forced a lot to go through shit I don't like, anyway, so I'll manage.

What exactly can I get from doubling them, and will it be a strain?

>Is getting a History degree worth it?
Depends on what you want to do with your life.
History is a great subject for those who want to go into law, politics, and sometimes even economics, and of course further with history itself.

>Will majoring is history fuck up my life?
Certainly not.

Dont teach if you don't enjoy it. If you think teaching a class of nignogs can't be fun, its not the job for you.

see the thing they dont tell you about is how half of your degree is how you sell it. you could go work from as a journalist, or become a novel author, or work as an advisor. its all up to how you spin your degree.

Take some time to really come with a plan for college. Don't rush into college because that's the mistake I made. I started with E.E. and ended up switching to Econ because I simply didn't like E.E.

Do I regret it? At first I did because of job prospects, but I know I wouldn't have been as happy. Now I regret going to just Econ since it's mostly business classes and aren't as challenging as I would hope.

If I were to do start college again with a clean start, I would go with a Math major and a minor in Economics. I found out nearing the end of my fourth semester that I really enjoy math, having only finished Calc III, that's probably not saying much.

Stefan Molyneaux was a history major and look where his is now.

Junior history major here. Been volunteering at a museum so that's always an option also might just go learn a trade when I graduate

this thread is making me have a life crisis

Might just kill my self before I turn 25 senpai

I graduated with three degrees in History, Philosophy, and Political Science. I also attended a non-Federal military academy in conjunction with a liberal arts civilian college.

Studying History or the other two subjects I listed will result in a certain personal enrichment but on their own will not result in any sort of practical return. Not like Engineering or something. You can't study History and then take your History degree down to the History factory and get a job. You have to be more creative.

I found it was essentially impossible to gain employment in anything that used my degrees. No museums. USAJobs is a horrible website and I've never met anyone who has ever gotten a job through it, except for congressional aides who were daughters of extremely prolific donors to the public figure they work for.

The 300 and 400-level courses you take will introduce you to the inner workings of history with topics such as Historiography, or the study of how History is written and made. You will read 20 different kinds of histories of the same event and they will all be different. If you're smart you will come to the conclusion that because there is no such thing as a truly objective history, the only thing you ought to work with in your own creation is data as opposed to other histories unless you are god damn sure they are correct. This will send you into a spiral of depression because it demonstrates that you've spent the last 14-15 years learning interpretations of events that aren't necessarily congruous with the objective truth.

(con't)

I don't blame my choice in degrees for my underwhelming employment. I can communicate, research, and think creatively on a top level, which companies certainly have use of. The problem is that there is so much competition, just like all other fields right now, if you don't stand out you're not getting shit.

Even the STEM meme people experience it. Companies know there is a certain level of shittiness they can operate at before they lose business, and anything better than that is superfluous quality. A very close friend worked at Sirius Satellite Radio for example, and the company spent quite a lot of money to find areas they could slack in. National coverage and IT were the two biggest ones. There are large areas in the contiguous United States that have very poor reception because it's not worth it to the company to build repeaters that cover the areas. People will bitch, but ultimately, still buy. In IT the company would host H1B-hiring trainers to come in and tell the HR staff how to prefer H1B. All you have to do is interview Americans, indeed the same STEM graduates that post STEM master race memes, and then go with an H1B hire and claim the American wasn't qualified.

Why? Because then Sirius can slave drive the H1B hires, pay them nothing, give them no benefits, and constantly demand more out of them because they can threaten to revoke their employment status and send them back home. This is not a phenomenon exclusive to Sirius. It happens everywhere. American IT workers are superior, nobody disputes that - not even the companies - but they want things like respectable salaries and health benefits in exchange for high quality work, and that quality is unnecessary. People will buy the product whether the infrastructure is shit or great.

Americans are more and more being put in competition with actual slave labor. It's a big squeeze that is only going to get worse.

Political Science actually isn't a bad degree as long as you (ironically for something called "political") aren't too ideological and can make compromises.

I'm absolute shit at math/physics/chemistry. Considering studying history just because I have no clue on what to do. I am at my wits' end. Not really passionate about it, though. What the fuck do I do? I fear my life story will be about how I had no passion for anything, and so I did nothing my whole life.

Depending on your university's strengths, there might be some historical topics that their Classics, Religion, Geography, or Anthropology departments are actually better at covering. I'd look into those fields as well if I were you.

as a math major I'd say question whether or not you actually like math. yes triple integrals and problem solving are fun. but a math degree encompasses really fucking hard shit like applied linear algebra, game theory, set theory, and complex analysis. go after it but it's one of the harder majors to decide on simply because it's muuuuuuch harder than the first and second year courses, and after that it's too late to switch.