Viability of a career in the humanities?

>early 20s
>going to college on gi bill
>no interest in STEM majors
>only subjects I like are History and various Anthropology courses

Would I be an idiot to major in these fields?
Does anyone here have experience with these fields career wise? Graduate programs?

Yeah. Just go STEM and hope society collapses so you can be in charge of some small town where you can read all day and apply your knowledge to strengthen your post-apocalyptic community.

Most non specialised jobs nowadays just want a degree. Any degree. So long as you get a really good final grade you can study anything you want.

If you want to actually become a historian you'll need to go the full monty and do a Master's and then a PhD and then either

1. Schmooze with your colleagues and the higher ups, they might give you some kind of position in teaching or research

2. Hope some university somewhere finds the subject you specialised in interesting enough to offer you a teaching or research position

Alternatively there are some jobs like tour guides or working in a museum or document checking that need history graduates but supply far outstrips demand. A tour guide job popped up on a local job site a week ago and 500 people have applied for it.

Leviathan is a good book

for history specifically, there's really one 2 main roads, teaching or law. History's really just a stepping stone to further education unless you can land a position in a museum or archive, but that involves knowing the right people.

I ended up going with law and got a paralegal certificate, ended up landing a position at a small law firm making around $45k starting, not bad at all for where I live.

but yeah if you want to make it big with a history degree, go to law school and get your JD, I personally couldn't handle the extra price for 3 more years of school on top of what I already had to pay, but that's up to your situation.

>Schmooze with your colleagues and the higher ups
But user I'm not good at socialising

What is the process of getting a masters and/or phd like? I have enough gi bill to finish my 4 year degree and have one year of school after that still be paid for.

>What is the process of getting a masters and/or phd like?
I'm in the UK so I don't know how things are on your end but it was simple as
>Go to my university's website
>Fill out a form
>Ask two of my lecturers from my undergrad to put in a good word for me
>pay the university 5000 bongbucks
And I was in

I'm personally doing a taught Master's but you can also do a research Master's which trains you more for a PhD but you can't get a grant for it

What field are you doing your masters in and how do you like it so far?

what about political science?

Simple just double up with something else that isn't liberal arts like political science

Like said push for good grades and get a BA or an MA

Then when they ask about your history degree just say you can credit that history major more with developing researching and writing skills and especially to think critically and to argue your position

Those things come in use for a lot of jobs, and from there you can take a lot more options like law, sales, business analysis. If you wanna be a teacher though you gotta sharpen your skills and grab a doctorate.

Damn right. Would be great as an anime.

I really like that style of room, but goddamn does the decor in there irritate the shit out of me.

If I can get a paid museum job associated with paleontology which allows me to dig on my days off while doing an undergrad you could chance doing the same with history. Just have to be attractive enough with extra-curricular and past employment. That said I'm in Australia and the museum jobs are remote so that might stifle competition.

Media studies isn't a bad bet m8

I haven't taken any political science classes yet, but I'll see what all they offer this summer


My grades are alright atm (3.7gpa), what do you need to be competitive for getting into a masters or phd program in either history or anthro?


I haven't heard of that one, I'll see if they offer it at my school

>Would I be an idiot to major in these fields?
No, having a degree is important. But it would be stupid to think that the job you'll work will be in one of those fields. Like said most corporate jobs just want a non-specific degree under your belt.

That being said if you really did just get out the military you might have a hard time sticking through humanities courses because they're full of whiny SJWs.

I'm convinced that the most rational way to approach the problem is:

1. Figure out what salary level your are comfortable with. How much money do you need, to buy the things you want?

2. Using the internet, compile a list of careers that meet this threshold in terms of median salary.

3. Comb over the list, which jobs look most interesting and what skills/education are required to obtain them?

4. Pick something and go for it.

I've done some budgeting/planning and I should be able to get a BA + a 2 year MA (I've heard some are longer though) without taking on any debt.

Do you think staying on for a graduate program is worth it even if I don't end up in the field?

I feel you about the whiny sjw types. I go to pretty liberal school so they are definitely there, but b/c I'm older (age and life experience) I don't really have any interaction with the edgy teenagers outside of class so it's not all that bad (so far anyways).

Seems reasonable, I'll try it out, see what comes up.

that gpa is fine for most porgrams I think. how good is the uni you are going to now?
you should look for masters in europe, like Leiden or something

I go to UC Boulder fwiw (it's not Harvard or anything, but it was the best I could get into, seems alright so far)

Why Europe? Cheaper?

dutch uni's are easy to get into and well regarded. plus, its good to live in another country, for the cultural enrichement

Pretty much this. The key is always to be realistic about your prospects and how to achieve them. Like other people in this thread have said, for the vast majority of jobs, a humanities degree will be fine, as long as you're able to market yourself. But those are mostly going to be office-type jobs that have nothing to do with humanities. If you actually want to work in a humanties field, the job prospects are much worse, and an advanced degree is pretty much required. Of course, what jobs will be available and how to get them is going to be incredibly varied according to the field you chose and what region you live in. The key is always doing your research and knowing what you're getting into.

That being said, if you have the funds and drive to go for at least an MA, it will help you in the long run. Even if you can't find a job in your field, more education will guarantee more pay in most area, especially the standard fallback of teaching.

>you should look for masters in europe, like Leiden or something
I wouldn't recommend that. European masters programs are shorter and easier to complete, but they carry less weight pretty much everywhere than an American degree (with the exception of very well-known schools like Oxford, Cambridge, and maybe Leiden). Plus, European schools are much less likely to offer you funding opportunities for MA programs. In general, an American MA will look better, and you'll have more of a chance of getting it funded (it's actually much easier to go to grad school for cheap or free than undergrad, in most cases). Of course, the quality of every program will vary incredibly by school.

Is that where you went? How does the language barrier come into play in a non-english speaking dominant school? I don't speak any Dutch or German (getting close to conversational in Spanish though)

the funding thing is fair, but he did say he had the GI bill. there are also research masters that are a lot more rigorous.

I am dutch so I don't have that problem. Everybody at a dutch Uni will speak english well enough. In fact, in the Netherlands almost everybody speaks atleast conversational english

IMO, it still doesn't make a lot of sense to chose a program in another country when, regardless of whether its a research masters or not, the end product will be seen as less desirable than a degree from pretty much anywhere in the US.

I've been through the debate of US vs. Euro schools a lot, since I have dual citizenship and going to both is fairly easy for me. In every case, the people I asked for advice, and the research I did, led me to staying in the US. One of my professors, who taught at a Euro school and really wanted me in his MA program told me to sideline him as a last resort because of how much less a degree from his school (which at the time was top three in the country) would be worth.