What can you do with a history major?

This is the question prospective students and their parents ask most often. Like all questions which concern the future, there is no answer, just a set of possibilities. At best I can tell students what former majors are doing now, and what sort of graduates corporate recruiters are currently seeking. No one can accurately predict what jobs will be available five years from now; moreover, the jobs many of our students will be doing ten years from now do not exist today.

The department surveyed its alumni in the spring of 1998. We learned that most of our majors are doing well in their chosen professions. Teaching appears in the survey most often, but our alumni include real estate developers, corporate consultants, insurance underwriters, journalists, bankers, an airline pilot, attorneys, military officers, government workers, several prominent politicians, ministers, and a couple of college professors. Many of our alumni are using their historical studies as a means of earning a living. They include secondary school teachers, college professors, archivists, archaeologists, and museum directors.

Alumni reported high satisfaction with their college work. Controlled studies of student evaluation indicate that there is high correlation between alumni and student satisfaction scores. And that seems to be the case with our program. Students leaving the history program are very satisfied with their education. The skills they learned, critical thinking and concise writing, have been useful in their lives after graduation. While some alumni report that they do not use their history education in their jobs, most alumni report that research and writing skills developed in history courses turned out to be useful after graduation.

The current economy, with its high demand for educated workers, produces good job opportunities for history majors interested in business. At the fall 1998 and spring 1999 job fairs, I asked recruiters if they were looking for liberal arts majors. Each recruiter had a different answer, but in aggregate, they seemed to say that liberal arts majors with a serious interest in business were welcome, but that they expected the kind of conformity to dress codes, and enthusiasm for sales that they have come to expect from business majors. Companies searching for liberal arts majors included American Express, Smith, Barney, A. G. Edwards, and many smaller ones. Starting salaries ranged from $29,500 plus benefits to $35,000 plus benefits. Nearly all of the recruiters indicated that their employees would have to relocate.

The history major is a good entree into the professions. Our graduates have attended schools of law, seminaries, and PhD programs in history and related disciplines. A bachelors of arts degree is the normal route to the graduate and professional schools, though some of our education majors also choose the professions.

Students should appreciate that four years from now these comments may be entirely out of date. No one knows what sort of demands the job market will make on new graduates even two years into the future. On the other hand, it is safe to say that critical thinking and concise prose will still be valued in the business world as well as in the professions. We will continue to teach history majors these two basic skills. There will still be a need for social studies teachers, and that is good news since our social studies education program is among the most productive in the state. It is probably a safe bet that history majors will find good jobs after graduation, and live the middle class life expected of college graduates. Unlike students trained for particular vocations, i.e., physical therapy, accounting, or computer programming, history majors will remain uncertain about their futures until they make their own. Of course, that's the whole point.

Marc Cooper - May 1999

Postscript: September 2005

Six years later the job market is very different. The economy is not the juggernaut it seemed to be only a few years ago, but unemployment remains low relative to what it was in the seventies and eighties. Demand for new social studies teachers seems to increase each year. Meanwhile starting salaries have increased to about $42,000 a year for history majors. While that appears to place our majors at the low end of the scale, after ten years or so things equal out. Check the survey at Studentsreview.com for complete data on salaries and job satisfaction.