Photo: UNU-WIDER from Helsinki, Finland (CC BY 2.0)
Job description
Beyond lecturing, the job includes preparing syllabi and assignments, leading class discussions, and grading exams and papers, sometimes with help from teaching assistants. Professors are expected to stay current in their field by reading new scholarship and attending conferences, and many combine teaching with their own research. The role requires a PhD in the relevant field and typically blends structured classroom time with the independent judgment of designing a course from scratch.
Pros
- High upside earning potential, with top pay reaching $162k at research universities
- Independent, intellectually driven work designing courses and pursuing original research
- Academic calendar and lecture-based structure familiar from postsecondary teaching generally
Cons
- Requires a PhD in history, typically five or more years of graduate study before hiring
- Only about 1,700 positions nationwide, so tenure-track jobs are scarce and highly competitive
- Employment projected to shrink slightly over the next decade (-0.2%) as institutions rely more on adjuncts
A typical day
The 9am seminar is twelve students deep in a debate the professor engineered — two primary sources that flatly contradict each other about the same 1848 uprising, and the room has to work out why. Office hours follow, half mentoring and half thesis triage for seniors. The early afternoon belongs to the survey lecture, a hundred students and a narrative honed over years to make the past feel urgent. Then the other half of the job: the professor's own research — an hour with digitized colonial court records, notes toward a journal article — plus a committee meeting about next year's curriculum and a stack of essays that grade themselves never. Evening reading is discretionary but constant; the field never stops publishing.
Tasks at the job
- Prepare course materials, such as syllabi, homework assignments, and handouts.
- Prepare and deliver lectures to undergraduate or graduate students on topics such as ancient history, postwar civilizations, and the history of third-world countries.
- Initiate, facilitate, and moderate classroom discussions.
- Keep abreast of developments in the field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional conferences.
- Compile, administer, and grade examinations, or assign this work to others.
- Evaluate and grade students' class work, assignments, and papers.
Workplace & working conditions
Work happens indoors in a climate-controlled setting.
There's a regular, moderate amount of time pressure, and you're expected to exercise significant independent judgment day to day. The work is highly structured, following set procedures.
Education necessary or common
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in the relevant field
Common college majors
Licenses & certifications
- PhD in History — the actual entry requirement for professorships
Career path
Related fields
Courses to take
- AP US History, AP World History, AP European History — take every history AP offered
- AP English Language and Literature — the profession is reading and writing at the highest level
- A world language, taken all four years — research languages are a graduate school requirement
- AP Statistics — increasingly relevant to modern historical methods
- Public Speaking or Theater — lecturing is a performance craft
Clubs, activities & competitions
- National History Day — real historical research with real judges
- Debate team — building and defending arguments from evidence
- Peer tutoring — discover whether teaching energizes you
- History club or quiz bowl
First steps you can take now
- Complete a National History Day project using primary sources
- Sit in on a real college history lecture — many universities allow visitors
- Email a history professor asking how they chose their specialty; most love to answer
- Read one serious work of history this month and outline how the author uses evidence
