If you were in your 2nd year of a humanities degree - what would you be doing now to

Hospitality isn't a good career choice in my opinion, and I speak as someone with a degree in Hotel Management, but what it does give you is interpersonal skills and a bit of polish that others would die for!

If I were in your position, I'd be sending my dd off to be a chalet girl for the winter and working on a yacht or similar in the Summer, for a couple of years while she, in the nicest possible way, grew up a bit. Then I'd be encouraging her to do a more career related postgrad whether that be teaching, law or whatever. We expect our young people to make long term decisions when they're so young. Some know right from the start what they want to do, some like me didn't and they need time and most importantly support (something that I didn't get) to find their path. I wish her well!

Could she volunteer for a charity in an admin position? Politics is another classic, but employers can fight shy of people they perceive as opinionated on their CV.

I agree about doing an Excel course - all the Office suite of tools to be honest. I'd also be looking at the certifications required in jobs she's looking at and perhaps doing one of those too.

I was a history grad, and my summer job was doing a paid research project for the university. If her course is anything like mine she's on low contact time, so a good degree of flex. I certainly wouldn't be going into retail for anything but money.

I now work in Data Governance, and have worked in project management.

I have a friend who is a Food and Beveridge Manager in a posh hotel chain. Worked their way up from a waitress and is on very good money. She has worked all over the world and gets great 'perks' when travelling thanks to the chain she works for. So there are well paid jobs in hospitality if she wants to be in the sector.

She can do pretty much anything with a History degree.

Now is the time to start thinking about what interests and motivates her, and researching careers connected to that, then getting work experience placements, lining up summer jobs, or doing some volunteering for charities connected to her interests.

I did a similar degree. I also didn’t know what I wanted to do at that point in my degree but I knew what things interested me enough to want to explore them as possibilities. I spent my summers working with kids in a summer camp, worked part time during term time doing alumni fundraising for the university, did work experience at various arts organisations and joined lots of societies to try out different things I was interested in like journalism and theatre directing. I also kept up my foreign language A level by taking the free language classes offered, in case I wanted to work abroad.

I kept my options open, built a good CV and also a good amount of contacts so I had people to ask for advice and help, and also for references. This all meant I got a job immediately on graduation - in the Arts/Theatre industry, which I enjoyed very much, but didn’t pay very well, so I trained as a teacher eventually. I am still teaching 10+ years on and I love it. I did also work abroad so those free language classes were invaluable!

If I can give one piece of advice - once she leaves uni, she will never have access to the amount of free opportunities to educate herself and try out new hobbies and interests again - so she needs to make the most of it. Take advantage of the free language classes, the extra lectures, the Q&As with professionals, the recruitment fairs, the taster sessions and so on. Universities offer so much beyond the academics that very few students actually appreciate and make use of.

I did a history degree. Looking back with what I know now, I definitely agree with other posters to try to get internships and work experience and to start looking at that before her final year.

But really, if I could have a word with my younger self, I'd make use of all the facilities of the university while I was there. As well as my studies, I could have done many IT courses, learnt a language, made extensive use of the careers service etc etc. All at no extra cost.

I was pretty involved with a couple of societies, but at the time, I was too young and inexperienced to really know how to present that as something valuable on my cv, so you might need to help or signpost her on that kind of thing.

My first degree wasn't Humanities but something along those lines. I did a summer internship and voluntary placement and some unrelated volunteering plus worked part time and researched next steps (two kind of obverse routes, picked one in the end). I also went to a lot of extra talks and lectures at the uni for extra knowledge.

The obvious route for a history degree is into journalism, the skills around reviewing sources for accuracy, judging reliability, writing clear arguments.

But any work experience which demonstrates that she is committed, reliable, good team player is helpful

Yeah she is going to have to do further studies to be honest, teaching PGCE, law conversion or a masters in history/area of interest

DH & I both have history degrees. He works as a health & safety professional & I work doing project management in the voluntary sector.

history has a lot of transferable skills for the workplace. Ability to read a large amount of documents around an issue and pick out what matters, ability to synthesise arguments for and against a position, ability to identify evidence within documents, ability to look at behaviours and motivation.

personally unless she loves working ludicrous hours for limited money, I wouldn’t look at hospitality for a career. I worked in a shop all through uni & the one thing it taught me was that I never wanted it as a career!

There are way too many law graduates, the SQE is very difficult and you only get a maximum of three attempts which means that those who have done a law degree rather than a conversion are now at an advantage since they will have studied law for longer.

That would have been me, a thousand or so years ago.
Look hard at exactly what careers entail, back then it was banking, retail, teaching, Civil Service, maybe armed forces.
I would suggest trying to get work experience in as many sectors as possible, from Vulcanology to Hospital Administration (depending on the degree structure).
See if DC can gather up First Aid qualifications and a DBS check. Both of those are really useful. Also driving, as others have said, if she can't already. Good luck!

I thought there were too many law graduates for traineeships? I used to work in a pub with a law grad who couldn't find relevant work

Op, if it were me I'd get a job as a TA in a secondary school, but I already work in a secondary school and like it! It may not be for her. Other things I know history grads to have found careers in are working at Westminster (both Cambridge modern history grads). One in cabinet office (she hated it) and another in Hansard (he loves it and is still there). One also worked at the British library and enjoyed that too.

Dropping out and restarting a vocational degree (which is exactly what I did)

Getting someone paid work experience in holidays, weekends

Anything to add to your CV

So you have stuff to discuss at interviews that's not education based

Use the uni career services. Even if she isn’t sure what she wants to do, they will have more generic support on skills and potentially sessions meeting employers to get a better sense of different jobs.

Switching to a law degree

Secure a good placement or internship.
Join relevant clubs and societies, and get elected to one of their positions (e.g. Events Coordinator of the Dungeons and Dragons Society, Chair of French Club etc.). It’s always good to join Enactus and take part in one of their initiatives. The degree is only one part of a university journey. I’d want to see a rich contribution outside studies.
If the uni offers competitions join them - e.g. hackathons. Get her to think about what she wants her career to be and start thinking about what placements and dissertation topics might be relevant. Unless she wants to work in hospitality I’d get her to change jobs to something more relevant.

My Mum persuaded me to think more vocationally and I applied for MA courses in my broad area of career interest (connected to my hobby rather than my academic subject). Otherwise I would have done MA in that subject and wasted a year or more thinking I wanted to keep studying - and actually I went straight into my first job before even finishing my MA dissertation.

I'd prioritise study and throwing myself into the degree - that's the one thing you can't do after you've graduated. Beyond that, make use of the university's resources - careers service, societies, volunteering opportunities, extra short courses etc - try loads of things while she has access to it all.

You can earn good money in hospitality if you join a big pub company and work your way up to pub manager, however it's a business that takes its pound of flesh to be sure...

What subject(s) is the degree in?

She doesn't need to work in hospitality upon graduation, she just needs experience of work and showing commitment to what they do!