"This does not fit into my life plan," commented a member of my staff when faced with another one of those tasks that fill adult life without seeming to give it meaning. I suddenly realized that what I do day to day does not fit my life plan, either, and I started to think about how I had become a university administrator when the life I had planned was so far removed.

My academic and life journey may offer food for thought for those who are making their life plans or who are guiding those trying to decide what to become as a grownup. I offer you myself as a model for the phrase that "English majors can do anything."

Playing the party game of "first jobs" with a group of academics recently, I found that my first job, part-time and summers, of selling supplies for fallout shelters and camping trips (they were seen as analogous) did not take the prize for "weird."

But, I did realize that "weird" characterizes many of the career paths taken by English majors of my acquaintance - from the banker specializing in small commercial loans, to the cybercafe owner, to the vice president for government relations at a large university - English majors all.

What is it about studying English that made us what we are today? The ability to recite the "Prologue" to "The Canterbury Tales" did not win us our first grownup jobs, and the skill does not come in handy today.

Yet studying literature taught us about human nature, society, and the possibility of happiness, so that we have been able to function well in many arenas. We have gone into many battles and emerged victorious, without the specific training so beloved by career planners.

At one point in my career, I began teaching English and business composition to aspiring secretaries at Katharine Gibbs School in Boston. I eventually became academic dean. There I was - with no shorthand and little typing - dean of what was then the premier secretarial school.

After Gibbs, I joined the business-programs office at Northeastern University's adult-education program. University College at Northeastern University offers undergraduate degrees to working adults, and I - having had no formal business education and with no experience of adult students - was in the position of helping to administer a business program.

Today, I am assistant dean and director of liberal arts and criminal justice programs at University College, and have become a presenter at international conferences on distance learning without any formal education for these activities.

I was not a hiring mistake, and I am not an impostor. The education I received as an English major prepared me for all of these jobs. I became an English major at 17 because it was the only thing I thought worth studying. As an English major, I learn-ed to read, write, and think, and those skills have served me well in 30 years as a teacher and administrator in higher education.

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