Why study History?

It was when I was giving my Leicester Award presentation the other day that I thought about wiring this post. My presentation was on my chosen career path, the skills that I had developed towards it and what I needed to do to progress in the future. One of the students watching my presentation commented that she didn’t realise how many options there were for someone doing a history degree at the University – she’s doing medicine, so it’s fairly obvious where that would take her.

That got me thinking about just how many different careers history can lead into, and why that’s such a benefit for anyone studying the subject! It’s not all about becoming an esteemed academic – although it’s definitely an option if that’s what you’re interested in.

You might be wondering how exactly a subject like history can give you such a wide range of employment options? It’s all about transferable skills – which you’ll hear a lot about form the Career’s Service if you come to the University!

So what transferable skills can a degree in history give you? First and foremost, communication skills, which are vital in almost every role you could chose. History gives you both written and spoken communication skills through the format of a range of assignments, including essays, article critiques, presentations, podcasts, etc. Analytical writing and the research that go into are vital skills, as many businesses want people who can analyse data or documents, and professions such as journalism are looking for people with good research skills.

I’ve written quite a lot about my Group Project module in my previous blogs, so there’s another obvious skill – team work. It’s likely that at any level of a job you enter you’re going to have to interact and co-operate with other people, and you get early experience of that through the course at Leicester.

These experiences are not only giving you the skills needed, but also giving you great examples to discuss in interviews – perhaps you’ll be asked to describe a time that you worked well in a team or when you’ve been able to communicate your ideas effectively.

So, while you may think that a history degree is just learning an exercise for learning about the past, it’s actually giving you the key skills to shape your future.