I don't really see History as a useless degree if you know what jobs you are looking for. It's almost like a standard business degree, just without the prestige of being from a business school. We have knowledge outside of our own culture in most cases and have strong analytical and research skills.

I will admit some areas of focus in history are useless however.

@Lone3Wolf Yes, and I'm honestly amazed the British Empire could keep control over all their lands. Well, except us, that didn't work out too well. As for the Battle of Hastings, I had to do my final report on it last term, and I can't imagine going over it for more than 2 weeks, let alone multiple years.

Then again, I learned about World War II from Grades 6-12, so maybe I can relate.

I would prefer your PhD in world history than an MBA any day of the week. :) Even if you don't stay in the field, if you love it, the education is worth it in and of itself.

What I like about it is that, because the Empire was so widespread and influenced so much of history, you can talk about almost any aspect of 19th century history anywhere in the world through the imperial lens. And I've been a diehard Anglophile all my life so... :)

Just wrote a dissertation on the diffusion of educational innovations through both the Empire and foreign states...It's interesting that Britain itself developed what we think of as "modern" state supported education much later than some parts of the Empire.

1066 is one of the few dates that even my freshmen seem able to remember!!
I agree! The skills one develops in history programs are well-suited to a huge number of careers. I remember at one point companies like Boeing were hiring liberal arts students and then sending them on to grad school in engineering/managerial programs for just that reason.

Thanks! I really do love it (well, except for students who seem to think they deserve an A without earning it). I was in a business PhD program after my MBA and hated it, but it did convince me that I could handle doctoral level work. And I agree that education is and often should be an end to itself.

The "do you want fries with that?" jokes do get tiresome...

Oh don't get me wrong, I will be happy to make those jokes at your expense. :)

But that's because I'm a bastard, not because I believe it. :P

Yeah, the Empire was very widespread, and it's remnants, The Commonwealth of Nations is still far-flung, even if very neglected these days. Trouble is, it died the day the Japanese invaded the Pacific region on 8th December, 1941, and half our forces defending were ordered to surrender to them without a fight - if you don't defend an empire, it's no longer an empire.

For 400 or so years, it served multiple purposes, the biggest of which was to make Great Britain very, very, very rich :P
It introduced something of a meritocracy for the outposts - if not in Britain itself (where class and money got you elevated instead :\ )

British people introduced a variety of inventions, and innovations, many of which still exist and are valid today.

Battle of Hastings
Same year as that, and a few weeks earlier, Harold had to march north 200 miles or so to battle invading Vikings - Harald Hardrada. Harold won that Battle of Stamford Bridge easily, but on the way back south, after hearing of the Normans (NOT French!! - well, at that time, anyway - more like more Vikings :P ) he couldn't really afford to pay his lords for more action, and they also needed to go tend and harvest their crops, so his forces at the hill that is now the town of Battle, in Hastings, was very much reduced.
The rest, as they say, is history
*dodges rotten tomatoes*

It's not quite that simple. The Empire was not a monolithic entity, and while parts of it made Britain rich (primarily the Caribbean in the 17th and 18th centuries), others were objectively mostly a burden.

And if you're talking about India (what people think usually think about when they're talking about the Empire), the picture was quite mixed.
Instead of making Britain rich, it mostly made some Britons very rich, considering that by the time the East India Company collapsed and the British government took over,
most of the riches in India were looted already.

Furthermore, you're talking about a 350-year (not 400, British colonization in the 16th century and early 17th century was negligible) period here. That's very long in terms of human history (one of the things that baffle me about non-historians is how easily they dismiss long periods of time as long as they're in the past). The importance and nature of the British Empire varied widely during those times.

Yes, and no.
Corruption and embezzling were rife in some areas, and not necessarily just in the richer parts, like India. There'll always be that part of human nature, but on the whole, Empire proved to be a good idea for most regions it "took over" - The Pacific and Americas (North and Canada, rather than Southern, I should say) were especially well done by (American colonies revolutionary anti-British-rule propaganda, aside). Africa, too, but to a much lesser degree - although here, mostly, the establishment didn't listen to the local experts - T E Lawrence in particular example regarding Saudi Arabia.

It was only the later part of the 19th and early 20th centuries that it began falling apart - given an increasing degree of self-control, they .... "went off the rails" for want of a better phrase. Corruption, and mismanagement and outright misgoverning rose. Rhodesia is a prime example of the failure of GB to control properly.
By the end of WW2, pressure from USA (they'd basically bankrupted the UK with their lend-lease armaments program) hastened the collapse. India had been demanding independence for decades, and very soon after the end of the war, it was given to them, along with the creation of .... Bangledesh (or was it Pakistan? - anyway, both those states were created for the Muslim minority population of India while the Hindu majority remained in India itself).
The Middle East "Mandates" and "protectorates" with Malaysia in the Pacific rose up in protest and wanted their own independence, too, very soon after India. Israel was created after the withdrawing of the Palestinian Mandate (and if I'm honest about that, we messed it up big time - mostly due to American influences, again - Palestine should have been dealt with properly at the same time, rather than being left to swing in the wind. :\ )

Africa's always been an open sore - no matter who "ran" it, Brits, Italians, French, Germans, themselves.....but with the collapse of the rest of the Empire, we pretty much pulled almost completely out of that, and left them swinging, too...although some were offered help in setting up functional governing systems, most refused...

The Windies, and Caribbean are doing fairly well on their own (at least those parts that had belonged to the Empire, anyway).
Australia, New Zealand, Canada (British part anyway - we tend to ignore as much as possible the French part, lol ), and hell, even the USA, despite their idiots in control, are something to be proud of our part in their history, and their parts in ours. (fnarr, fnarr, I made a double entendre!)

In real terms, despite starting in WW2, the Empire officially ended fairly recently - Falkland Islands war in 1982 was a blip, more or less, that reversed, temporarily, the collapse -

[interesting note here - pretty much the whole world stated UK couldn't successfully defend the islands from Argentina - it was too far, no local support, we didn't have the forces, etc. Even the US officially said it was a waste of effort and provided no military support - although unofficially and secretly, they provided satellite reconnaissance and intelligence for us.]

Canada voting to sever most ties and enacting their own constitution in the same year pretty much killed the North Americas for us.
The final nail in the coffin would have to be the "lease" we had on Hong Kong. In 1997 it was "handed" back to the Chinese after the best part of a century of being under British control. It's still pretty much our crowning achievement (at least until 2047 when the Chinese go all Tienanmen Square on it :\ ) - Sorry, Australia and New Zealand and USA and Canada, but you know it's true :P

We're damned lucky a lot of the old Empire still like us, and our ways, and joined us in The Commonwealth, and we should be taking better care of that, than being forced against the majority will, by our leaders, into the European Union :\
But that's another LONG story.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Looks like the admission criteria varies from place to place.
Economics, but I don't think I will be studying in the US.

Huh, I never went to grad school but I know plenty of folks who enrolled straight into their PhD programs.

The only people I know of that did that enrolled in a combined Masters/PhD program. As a matter of course you can't get the PhD without completing masters level work. Primarily because you wouldn't likely be ready for it without doing the work necessary to earn a Masters.

I just finished up my year at the Masters level, and it's no picnic.

Oh right, I know you'll earn your Masters, but they don't even award it, unless you ask (do they?) you just keep going to get your PhD.

That I don't know about, however, it's a degree that the student has earned and more importantly paid for. It's been a while since I looked into it, but IIRC you'd get both.

Dunno, if you earn a Bachelor, though, I'm not aware of many places that hand you an Associate degree along with it (people who have both usually went to two different schools). I know in law school you simply get a Juris Doctorate, there is no Masters option.

Eh, I'm probably not the right one to be asking about most of this stuff. All I know is if you can show you can pay out of pocket for your entire program you'll be admitted almost anywhere in the US (Harvard might be an exception, not sure).

It works differently for the different fields and can vary from program to program. For the most part, in Engineering even if you are accepted into the PhD program you do Masters first and get that as a degree. Often times people accepted only into the Masters program have to pay for it unless they are exceptional students where the university offers scholarships in the forms of training grants or more commonly TAships or RAships. That's usually a sign that the university wants you to try to qualify for PhD and often times those are people accepted straight into PhD programs (though in all cases you still have to pass qualifying exams). Once in your PhD unless you have a training grant or an outside scholarships, your advisor is expected to fund you through their grants.

For the Humanities and the Sciences it works slightly differently. There are dedicated Masters programs but there are also dedicated PhD programs. In my department, I will never get a Masters degree unless I fail to get my PhD. Funding is similar to Engineering (i.e. training grants, TAships, RAships, scholarships, advisor grants), except there is no Master degree portion to pay for. Again you must pass qualifying exams even if you are admitted to the PhD program. Funding situations can also vary from department to department and school to school. At Harvard, one department I was looking at makes a student securing outside funding from grants or scholarships necessary. Other departments guarantee funding for a certain number of years upon admittance. People do not often pay for their PhDs out of pocket.

Professional degrees work very differently: JDs, MDs, and MBAs in general must pay a pretty penny for their degrees. That said, admittance is pretty competitive for most graduate & professional degrees (though I can't speak for all fields/departments/schools on that). Some are definitely less competitive than others. Indeed a Master program is often used as a way to make money for a school because Masters students often have to pay their own way though it can still be competitive to get in at top schools. Many people can also circumvent a true Masters program by "co-terming" with their undergrad degree. Essentially you start taking Master-level classes your final year of undergrad and add a year to your studies. However, if you plan on going to grad school you have to be careful because not all departments will accept a Masters degree from another institution if they also require a Masters degree before going into PhD. This is especially true of some engineering programs.