Please stop asking me what I’m going to ‘do’ with my history degree

I’ve learnt not to settle for a job where I am anything less than stimulated, challenged and enjoying myself, writes Ollie Cooper

I have been constantly asked about my future (Getty/iStock)

I am often asked, “What are you gonna do with a history degree?”

Now, I totally understand the instinct that forces that query – after all, I’m not going to become a brain surgeon off the back of knowing about long-dead emperors, am I? However, I myself have more chance of becoming a brain surgeon than a history teacher, which seems to be the only thing that people believe one can do with a qualification in that subject. I’ve no interest in teaching, and while I may not be reaching for a scalpel any time soon, I do wish that people could see what I see in history.

Let me take you back to the start of my relationship with history. I was wandering around my local college’s open day, with little direction but the knowledge that I definitely didn’t want to do maths. Or chemistry. Or any of the sciences.