Second thoughs about Ancient History

Your career opportunities with ancient history (or history itself) are the same as anyone else with any other degree as far as generalist grad schemes are concerned. Employers don't care what you studied at uni, they care that you have a degree at 2:1 or above to tick a box then focus on whether you are actually employable based on work experience, internships, relevant transferable skills demonstrated by taking on leadership/committee roles in societies etc, and how well you perform on psychometric tests and assessment centre activities.

People with degrees in classics and ancient history routinely go into careers in the civil service, accountancy at big 4 firms, investment banking (if going to a target uni) etc. Unless you suddenly have decided you want to become a midwife more than anything an ancient history degree is really not going to make much difference to your career prospects.

Also of note research has shown STEM and non-STEM grads have equivalent career outcomes in the long run (i.e. within 10 years of graduating). I literally cannot underscore enough how little your degree subject matters to employers.

I'm intrested about the last part, I always assumed STEM grads would be far more successful.

But the issue is I dont really want a general job, I'd rather have a specific job since I'd probably enjoy it more, although areas such as the civil service can be intresting to me.

Many people assume that, but it's not the case: https://figshare.le.ac.uk/articles/report/The_employment_trajectories_of_Science_Technology_Engineering_and_Mathematics_graduates/10234421

In terms of generalist vs specialist job, first thing to note is that doing a different degree subject doesn't necessarily change your chance of working in a specialist role, just changes the specific roles in question, and secondly it's important to note that while many do want to do that the reality is the vast majority of graduates do not go into a role related to their degree, and the vast majority of jobs aren't related to any specific degree (or where there is a degree where it might be related on some level, they often don't care what your initial degree was anyway - for example accountancy and law where you can and many if not most do go in with a non-law/non-accounting degree).

That's pretty intresting, I never really thought about a lot of that, but a lot of the more specalist degrees still seem more intriguing to me. As much as I like ancient history, doing something more specalised and having a specalised career seems a lot more appealing to me.

Specialised in what? I would also note that "generalist" vs "specialist" just means whether a specific background is needed. That is not to say those in a "generalist" role do not develop specialist skills. Someone working in humanitarian work to alleviate food poverty is going to have and develop a wide range of specialist skills for that particular sector. However it's likely no specific degree is needed to begin working in the sector. Compare that with nuclear engineering, which also uses a lot of specialist skills, but you need a specific engineering degree before you can start off in the sector.

Also, all degrees are specialised in themselves, it just so happens the specialist roles associated with them tend to be in teaching or academia because they are fundamentally academic, rather than vocational degrees. If you want to do a vocational degree then you need to have a commitment to that vocation from the get go, not just a vague sense that you want to do something "specialist". You could certainly be a "specialist" following a degree in ancient history, teaching in schools or going into academia. You could also even do things broadly related to the background and concepts by going into archival work or the heritage/museums sector.

I think the problem here is not your degree but, with the greatest of respect, a lack of imagination on your part of what roles are out there. Which isn't an insurmountable criticism - but I think you need to be more aware of those before making significant decisions. Have you spoken to your uni's careers service?

I haven't spoken to the careers service, but I'm doing it soon. And I can certainly agree with your last part, I'm frankly clueless about job opportunities out there. I just haven't found much intrest in general career paths; even those that can later become specalised.

There's just an almost childish 'wow' factor about certain specalised degrees and careers, and throughout my time in school and college my grades were fairly consistent. This meant I could have done one of these degrees, but I chose not to and now wish I was doing something more intresting.

I feel as if I sound immature and foolish, which is why I'm asking for advice on these matters.

I mean, I get it - it's not a personal criticism so much as a general critique of a common thing that comes up. I was the same at the time. When you're younger you'll have had usually limited exposure to what kind of jobs are out there beyond those you interact with regularly and/or that appear frequently in the media. Hence everyone wanting to be a rocket-surgeon lawyer

But there really are a huge number of jobs out there, and even a "generalist" position in e.g. the civil service will lead you to developing quite specialised knowledge, along with a range of transferable skills. It's not the case that generalist roles are mindless or menial, they simply don't require any specific knowledge to start with - because you're being hired for your ability to learn to do the job as you do it, not for what you know already.

Definitely recommend speaking with your uni career service to understand more about the range of roles available, and also what kinds of jobs people from your degree subject area have gone into. But really the thing is, unless you have a specific career in mind already, you should just aim to do a degree you find interesting and enjoyable on an intellectual level, because it's generally not going to limit you later on as much as school leavers often think. Since as noted, it's really not the case that your degree subject decides your career.

Also worth noting, I think statistically the vast majority of people will change career at least once in their lives? So yeah, at a certain point you need to just focus on the here and now and accept that you will figure it out as you go along later. That's what life is really!