Late twenties, just got a History degree. First laugh at me, but please help me after.

In a country with actual history, a history degree can be useful. In a country like the US, it's a waste of time

Your best best is the military or some other make-work government job.

Advanced degree- public policy, public administration, law.

If you really like History you can go for your PHD but higher ed is a mess rn & you're gonna sink a ton of money to end up adjuncting at five different schools in the same semester.

I would look at the public sector -- libraries, museums, local governments, etc. Politics, non profits, community organizing, teaching, all work too. Not sure an advanced degree is worth it without a plan. May as well work for a bit and find something you like doing. Plenty of companies look for people with crossover type degrees.

I can't offer you a specific direction since I don't know your interests. I can tell you that your situation, though seemingly tough in the short term, is not bad at all.

Law school was the first thing I thought of. MBA is another possibility. I did an MBA, with my focus area in Finance, and we did not do any Calculus at any time in the program. If your math skills in Algebra are solid, you will be fine. I have an engineering degree so the math was easy for me, but many of my classmates were struggling with finance and thought it was super hard. Algebra is all you need to know.

I have a friend who graduated with a degree in Sociology. He somehow worked his way into software without ever taking a single formal software class, worked for a while for small companies and as a contract employee, then got hired at Microsoft. He's been there 22 years and makes $400k a year, and has a net worth over $5M.

Where you end up depends on how hard you work and the opportunities you take advantage of. There are ALWAYS opportunities around. Keep your eyes open and don't be afraid to take chances.

You've got to be more confident than you came across in your first post.

hopeless loser wrote:

I am so lost guys, where do I go from here in terms of jobs? I wanted to go into some sort of finance-related graduate school, but the school I'm in rejected my request to get the calculus courses in the summer (and therefore the other core courses which have calc as a prereq) necessary for that; If I were to persist here it would take me till 2023 September to have a chance at enrolling in that program. What do you guys think I should do?

Any help is really appreciated

I have a B.A. in history too.

After college, I moved to a ski area to take a year off before planning to go back to school and get enough courses to get a teaching degree.

That never happened.

Instead, ended up skiing 100 days a year, working evenings among 3 jobs to pay the bills and ski all day.

Did that for 5 years until started working construction to make real money.

Started uphill and backcountry skiing weird hours because work schedule and family, but never stopped skiing or got out of shape

Got married, had kids, became an electrical contractor.

Kids are in college, business has always been booming, and back to skiing 100+ days a season, uphill and on lifts.

History degrees are under rated actually.

Juice Springsteen wrote:

Couple ideas:

Work in the insurance industry

Work in recruiting/staffing

Freelance writing

Correct. I think the misconception here is that you have to do a job that is directly related to history. Obama's press secretary Jay Carney has a degree in Russian studies, and not only did he become a white house spokesperson, now he has some insane job with Amazon.

My wife has a degree in non-profit charity management, and she's a senior manager of purchasing. And the director of her office (who does quite well), has a degree in history.

You needed the piece of paper and you got it. Now, find something you like and start doing it.

Man, people sure love to hate on California. The cost of living in Cali is like 31% higher than in Texas for example. It not like Californian teachers are buying brand new Mercedes and multiple lake houses or anything on their $83k/yr salary.

Could have saved yourself thousands by using the public library and internet to learn history ?

I wish you the best though, you’ll land on your feet

my two pennies wrote:

Teach. History degree is somewhat relevant. Get a certificate and you can get a job. Won’t pay amazing but it’s a real career and you’ll end up with solid benefits.

+1

I have a friend who has been teaching HS history for 25 years.

I’d just add, don’t overlook the possibility of getting any ole’ entry level job at a place that does some sort of tuition reimbursement ... every place I’ve worked has had a program offering 50-100% reimbursement with varying length-of-employment/degree/minimum grade requirements to be eligible.

Once you’re in an company/organization, there’s often quite a lot of leeway for “stretch” goals & picking up interesting work. When I was with a private consulting company, I could get on projects fairly Willy-nilly as long as I could convince the project manager I could do the task (though they’d often just take my word for it). Get a few of these technical accomplishments done & beef up your cover letter/resume and more opportunities will open up

Graduate school isn't the answer.

1st option: Go back and get your bachelors but in something useful like accounting, engineering, computer science, etc.

2nd option: military

3rd option: trade school and then a job in the trades.

Figure out which sounds like the best fit for you, then get it done.

I was a history major way back when. There aren't many direct jobs to come from it. It's easier to land teaching jobs in a marketable area like engineering or CS.

20+ years ago, used to be that journalism was a good place to go with a history degree. Don't do that now obviously.

I went back and got an associated degree in Computer Science. It scared me to enter into that a bit as I didn't have a STEM background but I pushed through it and learned to like it. There are code camps that teach you those skills quickly, in a few months, for about 10k.

You've already got the 4 year degree, which is important to most employers. You just need a marketable skill.

So many great replies, really appreciate it once again guys.

Runningart- I would definitely consider joining the Canadian Armed Forces, but I do have some personal factors that complicate that unfortunately. Still, I'll definitely look closer into it, your experience is awesome, thanks!

Think I agree with many of the poster suggesting something in the public sector for sure. Either way, the stories and advice given here are very inspiring and encouraging, it'll definitely motivate me to get off my a55.

Don't know if it helps at all, especially in terms of the "marketable skill" that soontorunamarathon suggested, but I do also have a minor in economics, and took a number of classes in excess of the requirements for that; I also have learned much of what would be considered Calc 1, 2, and am beginning to learn higher level math (ODE, Linear Algebra) as well, it's just a shame that the school rejected my request to be enrolled in the calculus courses. In that respect, maybe after a few years of some sort of job experience, an MBA or some sort of professional admin degree would be good!

my two pennies wrote:

Teach. History degree is somewhat relevant. Get a certificate and you can get a job. Won’t pay amazing but it’s a real career and you’ll end up with solid benefits.

Unfortunately he was probably taught actual/accurate history. The woke crowd won’t allow that to be taught in our schools so he’d need to learn woke history

I graduated with a degree in history. I did not go to trade school, I went to college to learn how to think. History gave me these skills: I can write, I can research, analyze and I can explain the essential details that explain why something happened. For the past twenty years, I've had a very successful career in communications. Wipe your nose, know what you have to offer a business entity and get out there and make a historian proud. You are only limited by your imagination.

I didn't know people went to college to learn how to think.....

....I think what happens is people know how to think and college just applies that.

Alan

I achieve a first class degree in physics (plus an MSc in nuclear science) and I am still unemployed right now.

If you have a history degree, but you also have an intenship and connections who can put a word in for you... then that is worth more than a phd in quantum mechanics as far as the jobs market is concerned.

Nepotism, connections, experience, money - in that order.

Btw the jobs market is completely different now to 20 years ago or more and no one can compare.

Most city Halls have a Historical Commission. Work in government.