Careers in History
History graduates are well positioned for a broad variety of career paths.
Your decision to major or minor in History at the University of Delaware will help you become an inventive and capable thinker, researcher, writer, and communicator. The very skills that employers want!
Based on data compled by the American Historical Association, the top 10 skills employers seek in college graduates are:
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Making decisions and solving problems
- Planning, organizing, and prioritizing
- Obtaining and processing information
- Analyzing quantitative data
- Technical skills related to the job
- Using computer software
- Creating and editing written reports
- Selling and influencing others
Source: Brookins, Julia and Sarah Fenton. Careers for History Majors. American Historical Association, 2018, p. 16.
See where recent UD History Graduates are employed by visiting the UD Career Outcomes page.
Skills of the UD History Graduate
At the most fundamental level, history majors are taught to ask broad questions, search for specific answers, and craft narratives to make those answers clear and compelling to readers and listeners. In formulating the right questions and hunting for answers—pursuing leads into places both predictable and surprising—a history major finds, reads, and critiques a tremendous amount of material.
History majors must learn to recognize reliable sources, to move beyond established sources for elusive information, and to gather evidence systematically, comprehensively, and carefully. Reading this way is good training for handling dense information in any job, and is also a way to hear many and differing voices on a particular question. It encourages students to consider multiple perspectives, opinions, approaches, and arguments, and to weigh and challenge what they learn.
Historical research requires an apt use of primary sources, secondary sources, and an array of technology- and web-based resources—building a skill set that makes history graduates valuable assets to a variety of organizations.
Few disciplines come close to demanding the kind of writing and effective argumentation that a History degree requires.
What skills are taught in history courses?
Historical research requires an apt use of primary sources, secondary sources, and an array of technology- and web-based resources—building a skill set that makes history graduates valuable assets to a variety of organizations.
Reading and analyzing information. A method of reading to acquire facts and analyze content.
Effective writing. The ability to communicate ideas successfully in written form.
Critical thinking. The ability to consider information in a variety of ways and across disciplines.
Research. Methods of finding and evaluating information are key skills learned.
Many history majors go on to become educators, focusing on the communication of their ideas. Educators include teachers in elementary and secondary education. They also include higher education on many levels, including teaching at community colleges, undergraduate colleges and universities. But educators also are important members of other educational institutions that you may not think of as immediately as schools. These include historic sites and museums, where history majors can become docents, education directors, curators, guides and interpreters. In addition, teaching can take forms other than standing up in front of a classroom. These include work as historical consultants, contract archivists, public historians, writers and even filmmakers.
Many history majors enter careers as researchers, emphasizing their skills in evaluating and analyzing documentary evidence. Historians as researchers include public historians as well as policy advisers, who serve as planners, evaluators and policy analysts, often for state, local and federal governments. In addition, historians often find employment as researchers for museums and historical organizations, or pursue additional specialized training to become professionals in cultural resources management and historic preservation.
Because success as a history major depends upon learning to write effectively, many historians become writers and editors. They make their living as authors of historical books, or more commonly, they work as editors at publishing houses. Many historians become print and broadcast journalists, and others become documentary editors who oversee the publication of documents such as those produced by government agencies.
Because history majors must learn to deal with documents, many pursue a one- or two-year graduate program in library studies (commonly, a master of library science, or MLS, degree) or archival management, and enter careers as information managers. With this additional training, they enter the fields of archives management, information management, records management and librarianship.
Many history majors find that historical training makes a perfect preparation for law school, as historians and lawyers often do roughly the same thing — they argue persuasively using historical data to support their arguments. Many history majors become lawyers; some undertake careers in litigation support as paralegals. Others enter public service and become policy makers, serve as legislative staff members at all levels of government, or become officers of granting agencies or foundations.
Most people overlook the value of a history major in preparing an intelligent person for a career in business. Historians track historic trends, an important skill for people who are developing products to market or are engaged in corporate or financial planning. Many people who completed an undergraduate degree in history enter banking, insurance and stock analysis. Historians also learn how to write persuasively, and this training gives them an edge in advertising, communications media and marketing. Many industries additionally depend on an intimate knowledge of government policies and historical trends; thus, history majors have found their skills useful in extractive industries and in public utilities.
