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As I mentioned earlier, the biggest problem for the OP is probably getting experience in the first place. It is not the History degree exactly, it is not "history majors are dumber than everyone else and thus their job prospects will forever suck", it is not "history majors have no marketable skills" rather it is finding an employer to give you a shot which can be hard if the employer regards the history degree as "useless". Coupled with the fact that in general there are far more applicant's than there are job openings, "getting that first shot" can be quite hard.
What I would recommend OP is looking into jobs that are not to stringent on requiring a degree in "X" and "A" years of experience. So I would look into customer service roles, every company (american express, visa, united healthcare, Progressive, Prudential etc...)must have a customer service department-someone on the first line to handle customer complaints. I would also look into basic data entry roles, wire associate, wire clerk, clerk in general. Now the customer service and the data entry positions are not exactly glamorous or super high paying, however they provide a start and most importantly they provide experience that will help in applying for the better paying job down the road.
In general it seems that employers value experience over anything else, so even if your degree is "useless" like history, English, sociology etc... if you have work experience, references that can back you up, then the degree really does not matter. Thus I would concentrate on finding that entry level, data entry, customer service, office assistant, sales assistant type role first-stay at that for a few months-years, build your experience and work your way up. And it certainly much easier to move up or move into the department that you are interested in if you already work at the company and have a manager that can speak on your work ethic.
Your other option is going back to school- again. If the first degree is not cutting it then there are many masters and 2nd degree bachelor programs out there. There is a reason why 2nd degree nursing and accounting programs are very popular and it probably is not due to the fact that people miss University life.
I studied Political Science in college. However, I made sure to take courses in the CS and math departments, and worked on various side projects so that I could build a portfolio. I also founded a small tech start up in college. All of this was because I had a variety of interests and knew that I'd have to set myself apart from others. It took me a while to get a job (five months), but ended up as a data scientist in the tech world, so my days were spent writing programming scripts and developing/evaluating predictive. I don't regret majoring in Poli Sci, but I should have double majored in something else like statistics or computer science. In any case, you can make it work and others** have done so, but it requires a LOT of work and you do have be aggressive and allocate your friday and saturday nights to working on coding projects than being 'out on the town.' Even to this day, I spend a lot of my free time reading about advanced statistics and learning new technologies because it's important if you want to be the at top your field.
** just look at all the non-stem data scientists out there. Its not a plurality, but there are plenty of data scientists and statisticians with backgrounds in political science, economics, psychology, and other "fluffy" majors
History is totally marketable: analysis, communication, research, writing. MPA - community development, organization design...
When you boil down history and other liberal arts majors to their essence they all offer some basic skills helpful for any office job. What you learn and what you do don't have to be the same.
I thought the same thing as well, but i get the feeling that employers dont see it that way. To top it off, i took classes in grant writing, hr mgmt, environmental and public policy(political sci and economics mix) and fiscal administration(public finance). You would think that somebodybwoyld find these classes and skills that they impart useful.
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Originally Posted by jade408
What is a history internship. I have some history major friends from college. One works in tech marketing. Another one is government contractor (doing consulting on supply chain) / investor.
History majors already have the skills I mentioned. They are required for your major. How do you write a research paper without analysis and writing? How do you defend your thesis without communications skills? How do you participate in a group project without communications skills. What is your coursework in the MPA program? All of the stuff I mentioned.
You have to stop looking at liberal arts degrees as a net deficit. You learn plenty of critical skills for the workplace just going to college and completing classes. But you need to learn how to position those skills into workforce friendly attributes.
^OP, it sounds as if you expect those other history majors to have performed some magical process. I'm sure what they did was took an entry position, developed a career vision, and got the experiences and training needed to do the job.
Are you looking for jobs nationwide? Like you said, you have marketable skills. Have you had someone review your resume?
If you are not over 35, any degree will get you a government job. Some don't even require a degree such cops and prison guards which pay up to $200K a year after overtime. These jobs come with benefits that will make a company CEO jealous.
Getting a government job is way harder than you make it sound. You have to meet certain skill requirements, experience and magically navigate the application system. And have veterans preference.
Getting a government job is way harder than you make it sound. You have to meet certain skill requirements, experience and magically navigate the application system. And have veterans preference.
Also getting a government job can be slow, glacially slow, you know when Pangaea separated into the different contents- almost that kind of slow. I would that if you are going the government route, you are employed in the interim.
I have a history degree and spent the first 4 years of my career in low skill customer service/data entry/administrative roles. They were boring and low paying, but I worked hard, put in the time and - most importantly - showed management that I could solve problems for them. They noticed that my skills were being wasted in these positions and promoted me. I was also able to move up by applying for internal positions that were more skilled and higher paying.
It seems you don't want answers that are anything other than giving you the magical non-existent solution of a high-skilled, high paying entry level job for history majors. It also seems that you would rather wallow in your own self defeat rather than take control of the situation and putting in the hard work necessary to move ahead.
I thought the same thing as well, but i get the feeling that employers dont see it that way. To top it off, i took classes in grant writing, hr mgmt, environmental and public policy(political sci and economics mix) and fiscal administration(public finance). You would think that somebodybwoyld find these classes and skills that they impart useful.
How did your history friends get those jobs?
Find a nonprofit you are interested in and volunteer to help them to build skills for your resume. Every nonprofit needs some form of skilled help.
As for my friends? They took entry level jobs and moved from there. One went to grad school to get an mba after a few years in the workforce. That is helpful for big companies but honestly we are at a similar place and I didn't go to grad school. It would not help me at this stage either. The other friend did some internships at public affairs consultancies, joined the army reserves and ended up moving into government after a grad degree in public policy.
Their schooling is not dissimilar to yours. They just moved up from entry level jobs.
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