In The First Lane: English Major Develops Car Website

Jake Lane

Though his career at Albion College recently passed under the checkered flag, Jake Lane can safely say that he has already accomplished his goals even before he enters the workforce.

A 2012 graduate from the Detroit suburb of Northville, Lane originally stepped on campus as an English major with a goal of writing for a publication like Car & Driver. He took the step of turning ambition into reality in the closing days of his junior year as a study break during final examinations led to the development of Car Wars, which Lane describes as an online car show.

“I went to watch the movie ‘The Social Network’ about the developers of Facebook,” Lane recalled. “From there, I felt inspired to design a website that would attract a large group of people who all share my passion for cars.”

He hired a social network developer with his own money last summer and launched the site in early August. He plans to make his start-up money back and even turn a profit by selling advertising.

“[Writing for an automotive publication] is still on the table, but I have diverted from that,” he said, adding he has a year-long internship lined up with Miniature Precision Components (MPC) in Walworth, Wis., after graduation that he hopes will pave the road toward acceptance into an MBA program. “I will learn about every branch of that business, including management and engineering. Each section lasts a couple of months and then I make a presentation to the board about what I learned. Landing a job with an automotive parts supplier sounds ideal to me.”

A passion for cars isn’t the only thing that sets Lane apart from others with a B.A. in English. He's an outgoing individual who is a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity and competed for the swimming and diving team as well as the canoe club, which recently defended its national championship in the American Canoe Association’s National Collegiate Canoe and Kayak Championships on the Tuckasegee River in Dillsboro, N.C.

Lane credits faculty member Danit Brown for improving his writing skills while still following his interest. “My stories are fictional and my last one was about drag racing,” Lane said. “Danit helps me refine the sentence structure I use on the description aspect to make my writing about cars more interesting.

“Most of my friends who are English majors are writing novels,” Lane said. “They don’t have much time to hang out with people [outside of class].”

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