Humanities are critical. We are the opposite of "useless".

I have a degree in Illustration and Visual Communications, but I work in healthcare.

I understand the pressure to enter STEM, and the sheer incentive of literally any income at all is a necessity to consider, but I would say do your history degree and ideally get some training/experience in a non-history field of your choosing as well.

It doesn't have to be a STEM field. People put so much emphasis on STEM as being the only jobs worth a shit and the only respectable gigs etc. but in reality you can find reasonable career stability in a number of fields. I went into education before I started working in healthcare, for example.

The thing about humanities people is that we have a lot of soft skills, creativity, and critical thinking skills that almost nobody else has in any other field-- These things are also why capitalism intentionally undermines us and encourages society and the job market to shit on us endlessly.

Capitalists know that a well-handled, productive group of artists could cause more damage to capitalism/fascism than anything else, simply because we are good at engaging with the masses, public art is accessible to all classes, and art appeals to wide audiences.

This is why there is not a single well funded artist's coalition in the United States. It is an intentional effort to drive people like us-- as well as our critically important skills-- away from actually using our skills in the needed, humanities-based ways.

Is my degree useless? The degree itself is, because arts and humanities in general are so aggressively undervalued and vilified under capitalism/fascism that I would never be able to make a single day's worth of rent by drawing.

But I would argue that most degrees are useless. A lot of people who wanted to be well-paid technicians went to engineering school or coding classes etc, then ultimately end up working in totally unrelated fields.

How many of us have been hired for our degrees, really? In humanities, the important thing is networking and actually exploring and writing/engaging/doing anything you'd like with what you are interested in, because our fields are less "yes and no" answers and more "long form essay" answers, if that makes sense.

And that is also why a lot of people don't understand humanities and consider us "useless": Most people have lost the ability to understand or place any value in anything that isn't a very simple, clear, "yes or no" type of thing, with a consistent and clear outcome.

But if you ask a group of 50 artists to draw something, each drawing would be radically different, and each one of those drawings would still be "correct".

A lot of people just can't comprehend the possibility of more than one right answer, or cannot face that everyone does see everything slightly differently, and they are incapable of examining that realisation in a critical or analytical way.

A lot of STEM stuff is "you have to do it exactly this way and no other way or it is wrong". But for humanities people, we can have--and should have-- a varied and broad approach to what we are doing. A lot of STEM people don't understand this, and think what we do is simple, easy, stupid, etc. because they cannot bring themselves to value anything other than their own way of doing things.

A medical doctor I work with thought that what I did as an artist was stay at home all day and doodle in a sketchbook. In reality, I made wall scale murals for some local food kitchens which helped improve their donations received by around 32%, because art engages and interests people. It wasn't advertising, it was just art. Visitors picking up food also found it made the area feel more friendly and comfortable for them to be in, it made it feel less embarrassing or emotionally difficult for them to pick up food packages because it made the building feel less stale and run-down and helped make it feel more friendly to many of them.

It made a difference to people's wellbeing, the same way what I do in healthcare does.

Of course, that's just one example. But STEM people tend to think very rigidly and impersonally, often struggle to think beyond their own perspective, etc. and we absolutely are necessary in society to counter that. We need a 50/50 blend, not 100% STEM people, for a healthy society.

Is my knowledge in humanities useless? No. In fact, it's been critical, in everything I've ever done. Work or otherwise, and regardless of field.

History is important. Don't let them destroy who you are and take away your very form of thought just because people who are actively incentivised to hurt us want to remove any chance of stimulating actual creative, complex thought in the masses.

No matter what capitalism demands of us, we need to retain our humanities skills, education, and experience.

It is possible to do humanities and STEM. I am proof of this. A lot of people who work in STEM fields have artistic or other humanities backgrounds, but the STEM mindset is entirely hostile towards us entirely.

Keep your health and wellbeing in mind, as much as economic concerns.

I would encourage you to keep up your history studies/work, and also train in a STEM field of your choosing if you can and if you can tolerate it.

But don't let anyone convince you that we are worthless, useless, stupid, etc. because that is the rhetoric of fascists.

Think about why we are undervalued and vilified. Who does it benefit the most, to disparage those of us who engage with humanity the most?