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Colleges seem to have the lofty expectation that students will have the ability to attend class, be involved with campus activities, make friends and somehow still maintain homeostasis without flunking out. Perhaps colleges were one step ahead of students and when they created dining plans, which eliminated the stress of cooking for hoards of young people.
But what happens when students diverge from the full dining plan path? What do they eat? Do they exist? Three University of Maryland students give their inputs and insights about their lifestyles after only having their own part-time dining plans, kitchens and wits to survive.
Sophomore neurobiology, physiology and Germanic studies major Caroline Pugh said that she has a commuter dining plan which gives her 70 swipes and helps alleviate some of the pressures of cooking with her busy schedule. “[The dining plan] has been a great balance between the convenience of eating on-campus and the cheapness of cooking something at home on the weekends,” Pugh said.
Caroline Pugh (Photo courtesy of Pugh)
When she is home, Pugh said her favorite meal to cook is white cheddar mac and cheese because it’s easy and tasty. Her diet at home is usually based around a lot of carbohydrate and fat filled foods, since she doesn’t often have time to cook healthy meals. “I make up for that by eating mostly vegetables and protein in the dining hall,” said Pugh.
Even though her schedule is jam-packed, Pugh said she tries to incorporate healthy food options whenever possible, which she finds to taste better than those carb-heavy and fat-laden options. “When I have time at home, I try to eat dairy, vegetables and a protein, but that’s easiest at the dining hall where there are more options,” said Pugh.
One student with a part-time dining plan who does not echo the same affections toward the campus dining halls is junior government and politics major Leila Farah. She said she has used her limited dining plan about three times this semester. “I’d much rather cook something or even buy something before going to the diner,” Farah said.
Unlike Pugh, Farah said that she eats healthier when she is the one cooking. “It’s easier to eat healthy when you have no other choice but to make a salad for the thousandth time,” Farah said. “The lack of temptation allows me to snack on some hummus and carrots instead of chocolate chip cookies.”
Leila Farah (Photo courtesy of Farah)
Farah said she has a busy schedule with classes, extracurriculars and a part-time job, so she tries to do meal-prep on Sundays. However, sometimes Sunday meal-prepping doesn’t always work out, in which case, Farah turns to easy, on-the-spot meals, like frozen foods to supplement her diet.
Farah said she doesn’t mind missing her Sunday meal preps, though. “I don’t really like meal prepping because I’m indecisive,” said Farah. “So, I prefer to make meals on the spot or eat whatever my roommate’s are cooking.”
Like Pugh, Farah agrees that pasta is the move when it comes to go-to meals. In addition to pasta, Farah also has a soft-spot for another quick meal: “I also eat mainly vegetarian when I am cooking with the exception of chicken nuggets,” said Farah.
Junior hearing and speech sciences major Halle Voos can get on board with Farah when it comes to having a limited diet, as Voos is a vegan. Voos’ situation is different from Pugh’s and Farah’s because Voos does not have a dining plan at all, and instead relies on getting her meals from the dinners she shares with her housemates at the Cooperative Housing of the University of Maryland (CHUM).
In her house, which is not university affiliated, the housemates switch off who cooks dinner each night. For Voos, she and her cooking partner are the master chefs on Thursdays, where they are free to make whatever meal they want, as long as it is within everyone’s dietary restrictions. “Everything we make has to cater to our lowest common denominator, and that person is a vegan who doesn’t eat honey,” said Voos.
However, when it’s not dinner time, Voos must scavenge for her meals. “You fend for yourself during the day, but at night you can come back and there’s going to be something for you to eat,” Voos said. “So that’s nice.”
Halle Voos (Photo courtesy of Voos)
As for her go-to meal, Voos prefers a combination made up of whatever leftovers are in the house. “A lot of the leftovers [we] have are vegetables and beans and stuff, so… if there isn’t any leftover grains like rice or pasta, then I’ll just whip up some pasta really fast and [add] some olive oil,” said Voos.
Voos said that she enjoys life without her dining plan because it gives her more options and control over what she cooks and eats. “I like having the freedom to do that here versus just having to rely on the dining hall to have what I may or may not want,” Voos said.
While all three University of Maryland students have differing perspectives on the uses of campus dining plans, there is one commonality among the women: the importance of pasta in the diets of college students.