To ask what career you’d go into after a History degree?

[dearfatherpraybuildmeaboat]

DD has almost finished and is in a rut. She’s the first in our family to go to uni, and hopes to get a 1st. She is at a RG uni and studying History, but now unsure what to do. She’s considering becoming a history teacher but isn’t very passionate, and from what I’ve read on here it’s a bad idea.

Apart from that she is stuck, and even after research she seems to have understood her only other decent options are law and accountancy, but thinks her chances for these are tiny. Her main aim is to earn decently and move away from our tiny deprived town in the North— but what careers would allow for that? I’d love someone who knows about skilled jobs to throw some ideas into the mix

it's probably still higher than 'average' page, or pay for people without a degree. re museums.

Sorry, but not much really. You can start on museum assistant at 20k. Unfortunately wages in these kind of jobs never went up as minimum wage rose, so now you have this ridiculous situation where educated jobs requiring a great deal of knowledge are paid less than cleaning. To go any higher an extra postgrad is still a requirement: but you also need to be friendly with upper staff levels, in fact that’s more important than having skills and knowledge.

Nepotism and social connections are now valued much more than anything else in post-Blairite Britain.

(Assuming you can find a paid job rather than voluntary roles in the first place).

If she fancies a corporate career get her to seek out career events and apply for Graduate schemes. If her marks are good enough and she impresses during the selection process then her career might find her. Get her to look at various companies career sites and look for 'graduate' focus sections/roles. I was similar in that I got the degree but didn't really know what to do next.

If the work is enjoyable surely that is enough. Money isn't everything.

The original question weeks ago was about decent paying jobs. And the entire heritage sector should pay better, “loving the job” doesn’t pay the bills and we shouldn’t need wealthy parents or spouses to work in it.

Enjoyment alone does not pay the bills, which is why I stopped working in libraries.

I'm with the OU and they have a great careers advice service from first year, you can plan out what you are thinking of narrowing it down to. Does your DD's uni not have similar??

As PP said if she's not keen on history then head off for a general grad job. Consultancy, civil service, project management. Accountancy not bad option... has she actually talked to people about it? It can be more varied than people think.

I was a history student at a RG university with imposter syndrome and thought the careers service was for people who wanted to be an accountant or management consultant so wasn’t for me. Wish I’d looked now and realised what else might be there.

As it is I’ve spent 20 years in higher education professional services and am now in the civil service

I had good reasons at 21 but if I’d done 3-4 years in one of those big graduate recruiters, I’d have also done qualifications that would have opened more opportunities to me and probably given me more confidence to do higher paid jobs.

I was also very clear that the only place I wasn’t going back to was my deprived northern town.

History is a really good, general degree which can lead in lots of directions- accountancy, civil service, police force, museum work ( but low pay), HR, law following a conversion course to name a few.

Whoops- didn't realise this was an old thread.