Studying History Can Enrich Our Lives
The Value of a History Degree
With clear data and informal prose, Careers for History Majors equips readers with data, practical advice, specific strategies, and answers to common questions about the study of history and its value for individuals, their workplaces, and their communities. A resource for intellectual exploration, personal inspiration, and planning, this short volume describes the abilities and habits of mind that students develop in college history programs. Readers can see how the skills students learn in a history major line up with the skills employers are looking for. The booklet’s contributors include alumni working in a wide range of fields and occupations as well as professional historians. Together, they show how today’s college students can prepare themselves to use historical thinking to tackle tomorrow’s problems.
Excerpts from the Booklet
Featured Essays
Current and prospective students will discover an array of useful materials in Careers for History Majors, as will their families, career and academic advisers, faculty, program administrators, and staff. General readers can explore statistics, personal stories, and reflections on the many ways that knowledge of the past—as well as the skills it takes to understand and communicate that past—empowers individuals to contribute and thrive in their academic, work, and civic lives.
Links to three essays in the booklet are provided below. The full booklet can be ordered on Oxford University Press's website.
What Can You Do with That History Degree? Exploring the Data
In this essay, Maysan Hadar writes, "History has long been a reliable undergraduate major, both for assuring future job prospects and for building a richly satisfying personal life. A degree in history supports many potential career pathways."
Career Readiness
"Graduates with degrees in history can make a compelling case that they bring valuable skills to a wide variety of workplaces," write Julia Brookins and Brendan Gillis. "Hiring managers may or may not know much about what students learn in specific courses. This provides history majors with important opportunities to explain what we are able to do and why it matters."
Choosing a Career Pathway
"Undergraduate history majors are uniquely positioned to explore diverse and fulfilling career opportunities," explains Michael Edmondson. "The versatility of a history degree prepares you for success in a variety of careers, giving you the luxury of choice and the ability to adapt to new opportunities. But it also puts more responsibility on you to choose what kind of career path you want to pursue—there isn’t one conventional path the way there might be for other majors or vocational programs."
“Understanding history provides context and tools that help people navigate the contemporary world. History is as much about today and tomorrow as it is about yesterday.”
Lonnie Bunch
Secretary
Smithsonian Institution
“In my career, thinking historically has afforded me a differentiated perspective that many of my contemporaries lack.”
Congressman Tom Cole
Member of the US House of Representatives
Oklahoma’s Fourth Congressional District
“Studying history prepared me to thrive in a fast-paced, often high-stakes policy environment. Society’s problems aren’t solved in a vacuum. Applying historical context to contemporary challenges is imperative. Study history and you’re part of the solution.”
Michelle Emick Ronholm
Policy and Communications Consultant
Michelle Ronholm Communications
“History helped me truly understand the world we live in, something I now try to help my students do in my own classrooms.”
Carlos Contreras
Professor of History
Grossmont College
“Your understanding of history will come in handy as long as you’re willing to utilize it.”
Shaka Smart
Basketball Coach
Marquette University
About Careers for History Majors
Acknowledgments
Edited by Julia Brookins, Brendan Gillis, and Laura Ansley. Produced with the assistance of Whitney E. Barringer, Larissa Jimenez Gratereaux, Elizabeth Meggyesy, Rebecca L. West, Rachel Wheatley, and Rita Kelly. Sarah Fenton was a co-editor on the first edition.
Lumina Foundation funding supported the production of this publication. 
Contributors
Julia Brookins is senior program analyst, teaching and learning, at the American Historical Association. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s and PhD from the University of Chicago.
Loren Collins is a proud graduate of the undergraduate history program at Cal Poly Humboldt in California. He has seen the value of the foundation it provided in his later endeavors: earning his master’s in sociology, working to build career curricula for a variety of disciplines and programs at Cal Poly Humboldt, and becoming the director of advising.
Michael Edmondson is the associate provost for continued learning at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the co-editor of the Human Resources Management and Organizational Behavior Collection for Business Experts Press. He earned a BA in history from Cabrini College, an MA in history from Villanova University, and a PhD in history from Temple University.
John Fea is distinguished professor of history at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
Brendan Gillis is director of teaching and learning at the American Historical Association. He majored in history before earning a PhD and applies durable skills he developed along the way in every aspect of his professional life.
Maysan Haydar is assistant professor of history at Case Western Reserve University. She earned a bachelor’s from the University of Michigan and a master’s and PhD in history from the Ohio State University.
Christine Kelly teaches social studies at the Ursuline School in New Rochelle, New York. She previously worked in higher education administration at Johns Hopkins University and Fordham University, where she earned her PhD in history in 2019.
Sarah Olzawski is the former senior academic counselor for special projects at the University of Oklahoma, where she advised history majors. She currently is a renewals account manager at Foundant Technologies. She holds a bachelor’s with distinction in history and a master of library and information studies from the University of Oklahoma.
Brent Perdue is a recycling and waste management professional from Austin, Texas. He specializes in developing zero waste to landfill and circular economy plans, projects, and programs.
Sarah Shurts is professor of history at Bergen Community College in New Jersey and the author of Resentment and the Right: French Intellectual Identity Reimagined, 1898–2000 (2017), History in Practice (2024), and The French Revolution: Facts and Fictions (2025).
Frank Valadez is the director of the Division for Public Education at the American Bar Association. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in American history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.