With dim lights hanging over green felt-covered tables on one side of the room and noisy, flashing arcade games on the other and music blaring from a jukebox, there's no There was no way he would ever leave college. Only a dollar twenty-five to play pool here for an hour! And when it wasn't my turn I could go play pinball! Every day, hundreds of students would mill around the game room, yelling, laughing, and trying to challenge someone to a game of pool or beat you at an arcade game. Yes, I have come back from there many times with a bigger ego. I never left after being defeated - you just had to find someone else and beat them. I lost a lot of money in that dingy basement between the clacking of pool balls and the beeping of video games. But I got something out of it too. In a way, all the money I lost was to pay for what I know now: an arcade shouldn't replace college, even if the arcade is in the basement of the student union. As a freshman at the University of Arizona, I initially found myself intimidated by the power of the college: the flocks of people, students and professors, mingled in the mall, in the buildings and in the Student Union. And within the first few weeks of my first semester, I quickly found my favorite place on campus: the game room. Billiards, table tennis, video games and music. All the trademarks of a college student's recreation area. It was in these first few weeks that I formed an impression of the university. When friends or family asked me questions like “How's college going?” or “How is school?” I would tell them what I really think. I would say, “It's like high school, but with a lot more people, a bigger campus, and a lot of time between classes.” And this is the pure truth. My class work wasn't much of a challenge - it was pretty much the same thing I'd been seeing for years. The professors weren't a big deal - they were a lot like high school teachers, but you had to call them by name. And the best thing about going to college? I didn't have to go all the time! That's right: attendance at some of my courses wasn't even mandatory.