I am currently a freshman taking Math 115 and EECS 183, and it’s been a bit overwhelming. Not that the stuff is overly difficult, I just feel like I won’t be what I want to do for my whole life. I have been in love with history since I was little, but in college, I know it’s going to be a lot of reading. Can any history majors tell me how much reading it would be and how the workload is? Also, will I be able to find a decent job after graduation? I need to feed my family, too. (Tbh, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to major in CS). Thank you!
As you can well imagine, History majors spend much of their time reading. It comes with the territory. Unless you are an avid reader who takes comfort in curling up to a good book, I would not recommend it.
As for job opportunities, most History majors go on to graduate school. Many go on to Law School while others follow the PhD track.
That being said, I have known many Anthropology, English, History, Political Science and Psychology major who ended up working for large Fortune 500 companies straight out of college. Michigan has a strong alumni network, so if you maintain a high GPA and take the initiative, you should be able to find a job, regardless of your major. But there is no doubt that CS/Engineering majors have a much easier time finding jobs! 
@Alexandre Thank you so much!
Is it almost essential to go to grad school with an undergrad history degree? Also, my GPA may not be too high due to taking Calc and EECS first semester and not like them in general…
Just to be clear, MOST history majors do NOT go on to grad school. Just by sheer numbers, that would be impossible.
Honestly, your major doesn’t matter all that much. It’s the skills that you develop that matter.
History is a very broad-ranging field where you can develop many skills. You might develop language skills, quant skills, reading & writing skills, etc depending on which kind of branch you take. Personally, I’m a historian that works with big data so I need a lot of statistics skills (focusing on demography) but I’ve also learned to read French and German out of necessity. Those are the types of skills that you can grab along the way.
I’m a graduate student working in History at U of M. Feel free to PM me questions.
Eta: oh I should add that I wasn’t a history major. I was an anthro major who focused on history.
I can read and speak Chinese very well, so i believe I can use that as an advantage in history.
Michigan has long-term and deep contacts with China:
http://www.ii.umich.edu/lrccs
http://www.ii.umich.edu/lrccs/academics/fellowshipsgrants
http://www.ii.umich.edu/lrccs/aboutus
“I can read and speak Chinese very well, so i believe I can use that as an advantage in history.”
Ya think? LOL! How about when you are looking for a job? Speaking the language spoken by the most people on earth, in what will soon be the largest economy on the planet, surely cannot hurt. Plus as blue85 point out, Michigan has a long history with, and very strong reputation in, China.
Most history majors now also have a 2nd major that’s more marketable or at least gives more options, so consider that. For instance, you could do both a math and history major, or econ + history, or get a teaching cert.
As for workload, i’ve taken an upper level history class and so i can tell you expect about 7-8 books of various lengths, plus my term paper was a “brief 20 pages.” It’s significant, not necessarily less time consuming than math, so the question is what you can tolerate and what comes naturally. If it’s not equations, i guess go with what you’re good at, network and hope for the best
@steellord123 Yeah, I may do econ + history. 7-8 books for a semester isn’t horrible. I would rather read, but are there tests for these books? Are the exam questions really specific?
Unfortunately, the world seems to be evolving in a fashion which involves quantitative reasoning to a greater and greater degree. Unfortunate in the sense that this evolution is leading to a downward valuation of pure liberal arts. A history track is fine, and a econ add-on is better, but consider taking two or more statistics classics (definitely used in history…demographics, analyzing the plague years…) and two or more programming courses. You might find a course in R to be fun, it is used in many many disciplines.
Thank you!
I would highly recommend picking up econ as a major.
With history?
Sure. While history is a challenging major, there aren’t any real world applications to it. If you can tolerate the math and the statistics, the only downside to an economics major is that people might assume you couldn’t get into Ross. Economics degrees are pretty valuable in the job market these days.
How much math (like Calculus) is in Econ? And also, is there another, perhaps, more applicable major that works with history?
“How much math (like Calculus) is in Econ? And also, is there another, perhaps, more applicable major that works with history?”
A serious study of econ will involve a lot of calculus as well as linear algebra and stats. This is actually pretty interesting stuff if you have a good professor(s). I stumbled on this book (no financial or other connection with either author): http://finderscheapers.com/product-price/Mathematics-for-Economists-Carl-P-Simon-0393957330-9780393957334-1GOI79SMXE5 I believe one of the author’s is a UM prof who may use it in his course. Give it a skim…it may give you a hint as to required background.
With econ, you’re going to need to get through calculus. Two semesters, I think. You’re going to want to at least get into multi-variable stuff. And then there’s the statistics, which is really the core of economics these days.
You could try applying to Ross and doing a BBA in business. Accounting requires math, but not really of the same level.
If your end goal is to be able to find a job right out of college making decent money, history alone is not enough unless you get lucky.
Yeah, I know it’s not enough…but I’m not sure about Econ at all. I also don’t want to apply to Ross. Are there any other majors that are worth pairing up with History? I also can read fluent Chinese, so that may help with my major and finding jobs.
Not unless you have a particular area of interest in the historical aspect of something. For example, Asian Studies if you were interested in Asian History. All the majors with real-world applications (the ones that pay the big bucks) are boring, unfortunately. Otherwise everyone would pick them.