Brett Fera

Tired of sitting in mid-afternoon traffic at the intersection of Speedway and Park?

That's nothing compared to the rush-hour gridlock of Wilshire and Westwood, near the UCLA campus.

While spending the last six weeks taking summer classes at UCLA, my dream school as a child, it didn't take long to come to an acrimonious realization: UA students have everything they ever need right on campus, whether they realize it or not.

Think walking from Taco Bell to the center of campus is a trek? Try hiking almost two miles to class through multiple ravines and hills, with nowhere to ride a bike through the terrain.

Sure, UCLA is a beautiful campus with an extraordinary academic reputation. Its signature structure, Royce Hall, is an artistic masterpiece that would dwarf Old Main in comparison.

But in comparison to its Pacific-10 Conference counterpart in Los Angeles, not to mention plenty of other schools in the western region, UA holds its own pretty well across the board.

Despite consistently reigning atop the national spotlight as an athletic institution, UCLA's campus facilities are really just a lot of fluff. From the Student Recreation Center ÷ Arizona's is nearly twice the size of UCLA's Wooden Recreation Center ÷ to the home turf of Arizona Stadium, UA students have plenty to brag about to their Pac-10 brethren.

Bruins faithful have to travel 30 miles from campus to watch home football games, albeit to the Rose Bowl. I've found, though, that over the last three years, some of my fondest memories are of walking back across campus to my apartment while hearing the Pride of Arizona marching away in the background after one of those rare Wildcat football victories.

Despite turning 30 years old this past season, UA's McKale Memorial Center still sets the standard, putting UCLA's famed and fading Pauley Pavilion to shame. With the addition of the Eddie Lynch Athletics Pavilion, including the Jim Click Hall of Champions, athletic department office renovations, and the installation of a state-of-the-art scoreboard and video replay system, McKale Center has become a landmark on the UA campus. Go sit in the stands in McKale one afternoon and do some homework. I promise it's the least stressful place on campus.

Our library has more resources than the average student could ever need, and our brand-new Student Union Memorial Center shines now that it's finally complete.

And hey, what other school can claim that it has a Subway sandwich shop on three of the four corners of campus (however odd that may be)? Only the UA!

It's all right here. Everything a student could ever need at his or her fingertips.

So, yes, in retrospect it's true that I had to settle on attending the UA and giving up on my dream of being a Bruin.

But after spending the three greatest years of my life trapped between the friendly confines of Campbell, Speedway, Park, and Sixth Street, I can say that settling on Tucson was a definite blessing in disguise, because everything I need ÷ and more ÷ is right here.