What do employers think of graduates with a history degree, a subject that is ordinarily viewed as non-vocational? Employers widely respect history graduates as having a valuable combination of skills. Broadly speaking, history skills include:
- research skills, including the use of information and communications technology;
- excellent communication and writing skills;
- independent work skills of self-motivation and time-management;
- high-level analysis and evaluation skills.
Studying history improves the depth and range of your personal transferable skills including:
- critical reasoning and analytical skills, including the ability to solve problems and think creatively, often through doing extensive reading;
- intellectual rigour and independence, including the ability to conduct research using different types of tools and sources, gathering, sifting, interpreting, analysing and organising information;
- marshalling an argument, including evaluating, selecting and ordering relevant evidence and formally communicating findings in a structured, coherent, clear and persuasive manner, both orally and in writing;
- self-motivation and self-reliance, with the ability to work without direct supervision and manage time effectively, but also the ability to discuss ideas in groups.
Taken from Prospects Careers. See also QAA History Benchmarks.
