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A law degree doesn't necessarily mean you will become a lawyer. I work with alot of them and very few actually practice law.
Law degree is the 'professional' liberal arts degree.
I would be very reluctant to suggest someone spend the time and money to get a law degree if they didnt actually want to be a lawyer, or at least some job requiring extensive legal knowledge. For a general management job, govt, non profit, etc you can probably do better with other paths.
I hired a historian the summer before last to paint my house. I paid him $1,200 for the whole job, it took two weeks, but he had a Ph.D and his own brushes. Do you have your own brushes?
Are you kidding me? Someone with a PhD was painting your house? What? Is this for real?
My brother has a history degree and worked in Human Resources for many years. He had a pretty good career until he got laid off a few years ago. He did HR work for 30+ years.
I was surprised when I read this post. I would think that with 30+ years of work experience that your brother would be valuable to the company and never get laid off. What does your brother do now?
Are you kidding me? Someone with a PhD was painting your house? What? Is this for real?
I know of science Ph. D's selling windows at Lowes, working retail, selling real-estate, doing carpentry. A Ph. D. often winds up closing more doors than it opens.
1) There is a difference between education and training. A traditional liberal arts education historically was to prepare you to be a good citizen, not for a job. Professional school or trade schools prepare you for a job, not to be a good citizen. Think of it this way. Let's suppose you have a 13 year old daughter. Would you like her to receive sex education in school, or would you prefer she receive sex training?
2) The entire notion of "what job" is misguided for anyone under the age of about 25. That is old-thinking - the kind from 30 years ago. Don't think of it as being an employee for an employer -- think about it as being a service provider with a customer. You're CEO of your own company and you "sell" your services to the person who traditionally you might thought of as your employer. Every now and then, your customer is going to switch suppliers (that is, you'll get laid off & have to find a new job). Every now and then, you may decide your customer is a pain in the a$$ and you'll go find a new one (switch jobs).
Moreover, the best way to think about the future is to be an entrepreneur and run your own show - make your own job by finding something you can do where people would willingly give you money to do it. It isn't hard to do; it is a simple matter of execution.
3) If all else fails, you can deal blackjack in Las Vegas (union position) and you'll make the kind of money you seek.
I graduated in 2013 from a good public university with a BA in History. I currently work as a Data Analyst, the first job I got right out of college. I encourage you to listen to a lot of the advice you've already received: unless you're going to pursue graduate studies in history, with the goal of being a historian, or in some way doing history, you need to refine your approach. A lot of the point of a history degree, and by extension, many other disciplines under the Liberal Arts umbrella, is to learn how to think, write, and analyze. Leverage your ability to read, think (on a macro scale), see between the lines, aggregate ideas and data into a usable way, and recognize that many people don't have these skills. LEVERAGE THAT! You can translate the skills you've learned with a history program into just about any field you want to, you're just going to have to do it cleaner and more diligently than your competition, and perhaps most importantly, you're going to have to work your way up to the position you want. A barrier to entry into the job/field you want might be your formal training, but it's not a barrier than can't be broken down. It just might take time and persistence. Many a C-level executive started off their career with nothing but a BA in History and a seemingly endless supply of ambition and determination. Take a page from their book.
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What?!?!?!?
