College students: What is your dining hall like?

I'll be going to Florida International University in Miami next year, and I'm totally excited.

So I was wondering what kind of food is offered at your college, and what you typically eat? Does it offer a salad bar, fruit, etc.? Do you ever cook any of your own food in your room?

I'm curious to see how you all live, so please share! :)

Can't tell you mine since I'm not there yet, but I've visited a few and stayed with a friend of mine at Truman (and my brother goes there.)

My favorite thing there is this massive salad bar with lots of different (and some really random toppings) to put on, along with a cart of labelled dressings. There's a soup bar, too, along with the usual other stuff. They also offer vegan, vegetarian (I had a really good soy burger when I was there, and I'm not even vegetarian!), and kosher options, but I thought it was pretty neat that they actually have a little sign of nutrition facts at every food thing, labeling calories, fat, sodium, protein, and something else that escapes me now, as other places I've visited don't have that.

Again, looking at my brother and my friend, the living is very different. He lives in a dorm, but their microwave isn't very good and the freezer not big enough to store frozen meals. We bring up lots of snacks and dried things, and he carries a water bottle around a lot. He has a few frozen things, but he'll mostly dine there or out since the town is pretty small. My friend has an apartment, so obviously she has her own cooking stuff, but she manages well.

Hope this helps, and congratulations on being accepted! I hope you like it!

Mmm.. mine has a pretty good one, as they go. In the dorm rooms here you're only allowed to have a microwave and mini fridge and coffee maker. Older students actually have mods, which are like small apartments, and they have full kitchens. I'm just in a dorm though.

My school has a lot of vegetarians, so they really cater to them as much as meat eaters. Aside from hot breakfasts, lunches, and dinners (usually 3-4 full meal options during each meal, plus sides and such for each) there is an all day breakfast bar with dips, spreads, peanut butter and jelly etc. Bagels and milk, coffee, tea and cereal is always available, along with fruit baskets. There's a deli bar for lunch and dinner, which offers all different kinds of breads and tuna salad, chicken salad, egg salad, plus all your typical lean meats, lettuce onion tomato etc. There is a stir fry station open for dinner-- you get fresh ingredients and cook it yourself. There's an ice cream bar open all day. There's a salad bar lunch+dinner, with fresh italian bread at dinner. There is a side bar at dinner that has different sorts of pizza, plus plain pasta and tomato sauce on the side. Then there are 2 rows of desert shelves, where there's always pie, brownies, cookies, cake, etc.

Wow, that sounds like a lot. ._____.

Oh, plus there's any sort of beverage available that you want, from juice to milk to soda to rice milk.

Despite all of that, I find myself eating in my room and on the go more often than in the dining hall. Mostly because they have a rule that you're not allowed to bring food OUT of the dining hall. I sneak it out sometimes anyway (only for myself though). They close at 7pm, and I'm often up much later than that.. prepacked foods and snacks are a must. 

I go to a smaller school, so we don't have quite as many things as the bigger ones but..

We have a salad bar with all kinds of fun things.. like spinach, chick peas, Goldfish (I've heard they're pretty good on salad.. haven't tried it yet) and also stuff like cottage cheese, yogurt, sometimes hummus...  There's also cut up fruit like melon and grapefruit, as well as whole fruits like apples and bananas.

We have three kinds of soup that change every day.. well actually one is always chili, but the others change.  We have pizza and pasta and sandwiches also, although the pasta and sandwich stations close on the weekends.  We have a grill.. hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese, veggie burgers, fries, etc.  And the "homestyle" station which kind of serves I guess what they think your mom would make.. usually features a different style of potato every day..  Then of course the standard cereal and ice cream, always available.

And my personal favorite.. the international station!  My favorite day is build your own stir fry where you pick the veggies, the meat (or tofu), and the sauce and they make it up for you.  It rotates every day between things like.. sushi, empanadas,  quesadillas, schnitzel, Belgian waffles... pretty much the most random stuff ever, but most of it is pretty good.

At my school the freshmen have to buy the unlimited meal plan, so I don't eat in my room very often.  If I do it's just something like oatmeal or Easy Mac...I keep granola bars and trail mix around too.. and some Hershey's kisses to satisfy my sweet tooth. =)

I go a bigger school and our dining option are horrible. Everything is the same every day. It's all fried, cooked with oil (even an egg white omlette) and they don't know what "lite" is. The salad bars are mediocre at best but lite dressing is never offered. I usually go for soups or packaged yogurt. I gained a lot of weight eating at my school and now that i'm in an apartment I try not to eat there. Sorry to be cynical but it's the truth for my school.

Mine has a salad bar with 3 kinds of leafy greens-- spinach, lettuce, and mixed greens. it also has an assortment of other veggies, along with olives, chickpeas, tofu, tuna, different cheeses, hummus, etc. there's usually 2-3 kinds of fresh fruit besides the usual apples, oranges, and bananas, but since it's the middle of winter, we've been getting only fresh melon and canned fruits (gross).  there's also a sandwich bar with a variety of breads that include a semi-healthy whole grain bread with satisfactory amounts of fiber and whole wheat pita. Other than those, there are unhealthy already-made options like chicken tenders, fries, pizzas, pastas, burgers, etc. There's also a stir-fry station and a custom-pasta station and a make-your-own pizza station. i actually don't mind the make-your-own pizzas because the crust is really thin, like a tortilla, there are a lot of veggies you can put on it, and the pizza always comes out really crunchy and delicious. =) i also loovee the frozen yogurt machine <3 my favorite flavor is the alpine strawberry

 however, i don't go to the cafeteria a lot. i usually cook for myself because it's just healthier and i know everything that's in my food and more importantly, what's NOT in it. whole foods is seriously my life.

When it comes to cooking in your own dorm room, what cooking devices are most useful?  A cousin of mine suggested bringing a rice cooker (not just for rice, of course), but I'm still partial towards a typical microwave. What advice do you guys have?

I went to a fairly large undergrad school and we had 2 types of dining halls. One was a buffet style where you paid a ridiculously low amount to get in (I think like $3) and got whatever food you wanted, however much you wanted - you just couldn't take it out of the area. They always had pizza, hot dogs, burgers, cereal (even at night), milks, juices, a decent salad/pasta bar, and an ice cream bar. They varied the entree of the day and dessert. On holidays they did themes. Like on Valentine's day they'd have a chocolate fountain going.

The other dining hall was more cafeteria like, where you stood in a line for a specific type of entree and paid afterwards. The quality in the food was noticeably higher though - and you got outrageous restaurant-sized portions, and the price reflected it. They had a really good hamburger stall (I would run down at 11 PM and grab an order of fries and get ranch dressing to dip them in hahaha), a really awesome and well-stocked salad/fruit/soup bar, decent pizza, giant oversized sandwiches, and a very decadent dessert bar (I cannot resist that dark/white/milk chocolate combo mousse pie). Oh, also a good baked potato bar, a waffle area...and a decent vegetarian section too. They also had a barbeque section which was pretty good, but their Asian stirfry was kind of abysmal - outright disgusting.

Various cafes and fast food joints were all within walking distance of campus - possibly much more dangerous (calorie-wise) than whatever's on campus :P.

It was a lot easier to eat healthier once I moved off campus. And MUCH cheaper too.

Original Post by hello_sunshine:

When it comes to cooking in your own dorm room, what cooking devices are most useful?  A cousin of mine suggested bringing a rice cooker (not just for rice, of course), but I'm still partial towards a typical microwave. What advice do you guys have?

Electric hot-water boiler. Good for instant noodles/instant mashed potatoes/hot tea/hot cocoa. I used it tons more than my mini rice cooker.

Original Post by hello_sunshine:

When it comes to cooking in your own dorm room, what cooking devices are most useful? A cousin of mine suggested bringing a rice cooker (not just for rice, of course), but I'm still partial towards a typical microwave. What advice do you guys have?

 I agree with the hot water boiler; I constantly use it for tea and hot coco and coffeedrink. The microwave is really indispensable though. I would have liked to have a rice cooker at the time ha ha.. but rice CAN be cooked in the microwave too; it's probably just a little less convenient. I use my microwave every day, even if it's just to REHEAT a drink that I've let get cold. Plus if you buy canned soup, you can't heat that up in a water boiler, so microwave is the best bet for that too.

A toaster oven might also be really good-- but be careful, some schools don't allow these. I brought one and I was allowed to keep it in the "lounge" area; a common space for the floor. Which is fine..sort of. Just not as good as having it in my room.

Also get a good sized thermos. You can fill it up in the dining hall with anything, and then you have something to drink in class or in your room other than water-- but it's free.

 

Oh yes, definitely a microwave. I thought you already had one, haha. Between a hot water boiler and a microwave, pick the microwave.

I'm living off-campus this year and I very much prefer being able to cook my own meals.

 

Dining hall last year was bad. There was a salad bar, but it rarely had different things and eating lettuce everyday got sickening.

I recommend eating breakfast in your room. The dining hall here offered meat(bacon or sausage) potatoes (hash browns) and liked to fry everything in eggs.(French pancakes, toast) and offered very little in way of fruit. There was cereal and toast available, but if you can choose the number of meals you purchase why pay $6 for a bowl of lucky charms? :)

 

Also, as an aside, they would put anything on pizza. Lettuce on pizza? What?