- College students who live on campus often face limited options when it comes to food.
- Specified meal plans, small kitchens, and a lack of cooking skills hinder a college student’s quest for diverse, nutritious meals.
- Students must adapt to be more self-sufficient when they finally get their own kitchen.
  
Meal Plans
Cal Poly freshmen are required to have a meal plan when living in the dorms. Meal plans include a set number of meals per week with an additional amount of “Plus Dollars” that can be used throughout the quarter.
While some freshmen may find this helpful with an inadequate kitchen and no transportation, others have problems fulfilling their dietary needs.
Animal science freshman Ariana Truszewski struggles with her meals on a daily basis due to her lactose and gluten intolerance.
“I usually just eat the vegetables at the salad bar and I never get anything from the hot food section because most of it is coated either with butter or cheese,” Truszewski said. “I also don’t’ eat red meat, so I have very limited restrictions on my food.”
Truszewski also keeps plenty of granola bars and peanut butter as her go-to snack, so she is anxious to finally be able to have more options for her meals.
“I’m excited to start living off-campus in a house and have a kitchen where I can buy vegetables and make a real salad instead of this thing that I don’t even know where it’s coming from,” Truszewski said.
Truszewski relies on her meal plan and small snacks in her dorm room, but some other freshmen choose to utilize the dorm kitchen to have a more diverse diet.
Dorm Cooking
All Cal Poly dorms are equipped with small kitchens available for the residents to use at any time. However, only a small fraction of dorm residents actually use the kitchens due to limited supplies, the small space, and a lack of transportation to get to the grocery store.
Agricultural business freshman Anna Coumes, however, makes use of her dorm’s kitchen.
“I just started cooking every Thursday night. My friend and I go to Trader Joes on Tuesday, and we get the food we want and cook it on Thursday. The kitchen is small, but it gets the job done,” Coumes said.
She still eats at the on-campus dining establishments, but her lacrosse practice schedule leaves her with even more limited options as places close and food runs out.
Not only does cooking in the kitchen provide her with more variety, but she also feels healthier when she eats her own cooking.
“I’m afraid to eat the meats on campus, because they are pretty sketchy. Since I’m afraid to eat the meats, I try to cook soybeans or something to get the protein in,” Coumes said.
Kitchen Upgrade
Going from the dorms to Poly Canyon Village, the on-campus apartments, is a big change for many students. The apartments include a kitchen, which opens up a whole new world to students who had spent their first year in the dorms.
Business administration sophomore Katie Gabrielson fully appreciates having her own place to cook her meals.
“I used the kitchen in the dorm, but this one is way different because you have your own stuff and you know where it is,” Gabrielson said. “They didn’t always have the things you needed in the dorm kitchen, and some of the appliances didn’t work very well.”
Cooking her own meals also bonds Gabrielson with her roommates.
“We all cook together. We even have aprons that we wear sometimes. We just help each other out and it’s a lot of fun. We have the door open and people walk by and tell us that it smells really good. Supposedly we are the kitchen that smells really good,” Gabrielson said.
Many students are introduced to their own kitchen and proceed to learn how to cook from there. However, having a kitchen allowed Gabrielson to expand on her cooking skills.
“I knew how to cook before, and so did my other roommates. We had similar recipes from home, but with our own twist on it. So now, we are able to combine our recipes and learn new things,” Gabrielson said.
Dangers in the Kitchen
Unlike Gabrielson, some college students do not know how to cook prior to having their own kitchen. This can result in many students in PCV setting off the smoke alarm each day as they become familiar with cooking for themselves.
Whenever a smoke detector goes off, the Cal Poly University Police Department (UPD) must respond to the alarm. UPD responds to about three to five smoke alarms each night, according to UPD Chief Bill Watton.
“Far too much time is wasted answering to the smoke alarms. The alarms usually go off when students leave hot grease on a pan while they cook in their kitchens,” Watton said.
Learning how to cook is a part of gaining independence in college, and on-campus housing helps students make that transition.
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