What's wrong with being a history major?

Question

Okay, so lately it's been happening too often. I'm a History major at UCLA, third year, with a 4.00 gpa. Now, everytime I meet someone they feel obliged to ask me what my major is, and they kind of scuff and snicker when I tell them it's history. Sometimes I get a response such as : What are you going to do with it, become an archeologist? Or "Are you going to be a history teacher?".....etc.

Most people in college can't handle math, only a small fraction of students are capable of completing calculus, etc. Most people are bullcrap majors like me, so I don't see why people think it's funny. Most people in college should be laughed at, then?

Oh, and how's my english?

I want to go to law school too...

Answer 1

Oh don't worry about what people say. With a 4.00 from UCLA you can get into a great law school and make a whole lotta money.

Answer 2

Being A History Major

Answer 3

History major MIGHT qualify you for law school (they'd rather it be PRe law or Poly Sci).

I have a freind with a History PH D and she to go back and get an MS in another field to get more money.

A History PH D allows you to go out and find three or four colleges in the same area that will give you ONE class each and $25 an hour. So it takes 4 classes just to make $300 a week.

One of those college might like you and give you more classes and eventually bring you in full time, tenure you and make you an Associate Professor and now you'll make $50K a year and the rest is up to you.

Getting GRANTS to do a research project that might yeld a book or white paper.

So you do a book and make your students by that book each semester. NOW, if you have a 400 student UNDERGRADUATE auditorium class, you are making $600 each semester in book sales (you get about $1.50 a book)

If you class is only 40 students you get $60 a semester.

Now, you manage to do something like "THE ASCENT OF MAN" and maybe get a 2 hour special on PBS or something, things start to happen.

Maybe you get together with student filmmakers in the Cinema Video department and do something exciting on history, with actors (from the school) you are narrator. A James Burke type thing and do it as a pilot for PBS and show it to them or to Time Life BBC and see if you can get funding to do it for real and maybe if you do throw a few jobs at the Cinema students who helped you.

What I'm talking about is becoming CArl Sagan.

Otherwise you'll spend 30 years at the college ending up with may $125K a year in pay and a nice retirement salary and maybe be the Chair of the History department and full professors with a few text books to your name.

Answer 4

I love history but I wouldn't major in it.

A degree in history is a good way of backing yourself into the corner of teaching.....it's like IF you don't go to law school or drop out all that degree will get you is a teaching job.

Answer 5

They laugh because they don't know what exactly is involved in the study of history. You have to remember, the vast majority of the public's entire experience of history is the mind-numbing drone of date after date after interminable date they were forced to endure throughout their public education and that first couple of core survey courses in college. Most people are smart enough to know that the rote memorization of dates and places and names is, in and of itself, useless. Since that's all the experience they have of the study of history, they come to the conclusion that the discipline itself is useless, not just that they recieved a particularly nasty and pointless introduction. Seriously, how many musicians would continue to study music if the only music they were ever exposed to were scales repetitions?

I could go on for a while on this theme, but suffice it to say, that this situation isn't really the teachers' faults. Our current public education climate doesn't encourage much innovation in the teaching of any subject, and history often falls victim to budgetary and standardized testing concerns. During those first couple of years the survey course proffessors are so busy just trying to help their students catch up on the basics that were either glossed over or missed entirely in High School (how many of us thought American history petered out somewhere halfway through the Korean War?), that there isn't really time to get into historical method and theory.

Personally, I love history. I have a BA in History myself and the study continues to be a favorite pass-time. As for my day job, however, I am working in Quality Assurance in the aerospace industry and I use the skills I learned while earning my degree every day.

Quantitative and qualitative data analysis are the skills I use first and foremost. I can do research -- a skill many people in the private sector simply don't have, I've come to learn. I can arrange and analyze data logically and thoughtfully. I can recognise the patterns within the everyday minutia, forecast probable trends and then arrange this data into a clear narrative for use by my company.

Now do you see why law colleges snap up history majors? We already know how to think about situations with multiple variables and tackle issues methodically and logically.

I hope my answer is useful to you. In answer to your last question, your English seems fine for informal writing. If you are maintaining a 4.0 GPA in a subject as writing intensive as History, I'm sure your formal English is quite good.

Answer 6

Nothing if that's truly what you enjoy. It will be tougher to get a job, but I'm sure you'll be fine. I was an English major in college and everyone made fun of me, but now just 3 years out of school I'm the Editor in Chief of a research firm.

Answer 7

Obviously people are totally ignorant about history, what it is, and what you can gain from studying it. In addition to allowing you to become a teacher or professor, history is also a ticket to law school. And if none of that interests you, history also teaches you advanced writing skills, research skills, practical computer skills, statistics, basic psychology, economics, business, sociology, philosophy, religion, and provides you with an indepth understanding of people and how they tick. People who study history can analyze data and information quickly and more accurately than most people who do not study history. People who study history learn advanced communication skills, grammar, precision writing, and exercise their ability to make a proper argument. People ask what you can do with a history degree. I have a better question: what CAN'T you do with a history degree? Mine provided me with a seven year career in victim service administration that I loved, until I decided to go back to school to get my doctoral degree... in history. Best thing I ever did. Meanwhile, a lot of people who took more "practical" things like computers and business and math have run into a saturated market, and they have less diverse skills than I do. A lot of people who took the "smart" path are unemployed or underpaid. Who's in the "practical" discipline now?

Stick to it. You'll be glad you did what you want to do, and not what other people THINK you should do. Good luck!

Answer 8

History won't help you in game design. Major in graphic design, and maybe illustration.

Answer 9

Because there's no future in history!

Answer 10

Wow! Well put Mr. Taco and Patricia!

History can prepare you for a diplomatic or political career as well.
In answer to your second question, your English is fine, but I would avoid using words like bullcrap.