Long-Term Prospects

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Job Satisfaction

General quality of life statement

Let's say you want to be a history professor or historian. Excellent. We hope you'll do a better job than the legions that came before you because sadly, we seem to learn little from our past mistakes.

The knocks on being a history professor are tough and real ones:

1. You won't get rich doing it. History is not really a burgeoning market.
     
2. People in "the real world" may think you are elitist…or just couldn't make it selling life insurance. Ooh. That one hit a little too close to home, huh?
     
3. There's not much pressure, which is good if you hate pressure, and bad if you need some to feel "worthy." For example, does anybody ever yell in a panicked voice, "My father is dying! Is there a history professor in the house?" If you are completely wrong about who killed whom at The Battle of Appomattox, does it really harm anyone?
     
4. You'll live in a thin bubble as you try to plan a life and career until you get tenure—which is guaranteed employment for life unless you murder someone or plagiarize. (And who's to say which is worse?)

Even with all of these structural impediments, being a history professor or full-blown historian is an amazing gig. For lovers of history, it doesn't get much better. So long as you don't care what car you drive or how many bathrooms you have in your house, life will be awesome—the university or museum is your backyard.

And as backyards go, it's not too shabby.

25th Percentile Salary

Median Salary

75th Percentile Salary

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