I just finished my M.A. in History. Originally, I wanted to earn either a degree in secondary ed. or a Phd and teach at either the high school or university level. I don’t think I can afford to do that any more. I am recently married and have a mountain of debt. I spoke to a career couselor at school and she referred me to several online databases. She was not very helpful. I need to find a job where I can make some money. I’ve been substitute teaching and temping, but that does not pay the bills. I’d like to find a job teaching at a private school or maybe find work at museum or historical society. I’m living in the Kansas City area, and it seems like all the jobs are somewhere else.
I feel like I just spent the last year and a half earning a useless degree. What can I do? What direction makes the most sense? Any help is appreciated.
Around here, there are several universities that offer special accelerated primary or secondary teaching certificates which are specially designed for people who already have a bachelor’s degree in another field. I believe in Chicago, as well as NY and other major cities, they are still desperate enough for teachers in certain fields (particularly bilingual, math/science, and special ed) that they will give a provisional teaching certificate for a couple of years while you earn an M.A. in education at night and during the summer. Why don’t you have a chat with your local Board of Ed? Teaching sounds pretty practical, if you can pull it off from a logistical standpoint.
Also, from what I know about private schools around here, the pay scale pretty much sucks, and you might actually make better money temping or in a straight, boring admin job. Sad, but true.
I can definitely relate - I got my master in linguistics in Dec. 2001, hoping to use it as a stepping stone to get into a PhD in archaeology, but I just didn’t have the money afterwards to move forward. I was in marketing, but recently quit, and am now hoping to do archaeology field tech work, and freelance writing to round that out.
Anyway, if you’re not looking to stay in the KC area, here is a site that posts jobs in the U.S. and overseas on museum jobs: Museum Jobs. Another thing I would suggest is that you check out Kansas or Missouri’s (depending upon where you live and/or where you would like to work) department of natural resources page. Many government sites list jobs in historical/cultural preservation that require education in history, sociology, anthropology, etc. Yet another place you might want to check could be with the Army Corps or Engineers. Sounds like a very unlikely place; however, one of my friends graduated with an archaeology degree and is now an historian with the St. Louis Army Corps of Engineers. She’s not doing quite what she originally expected upon graduation, but her work is interesting, and still within the realm of what she went to school for.