Does college dining actually matter?

I wanted to write this article because many high schoolers applying for college wanted to try quality college dining food.

I’m probably the worst person to write this article because I tried some high-quality food everywhere, coming from one of the world’s largest economic zones. I'm not going to flex or anything, but I’ve eaten some cheap and expensive meals, only to find out that the workers make or break the meal. I’ve found that my must-haves are sometimes the more inexpensive meals, and I’m not too shy to be biased towards expensive meals if I find the price justified. Not everyone has access to this food quality at that rate and scale. When writing this article, I tend to be more hostile toward people’s perception of college dining hall food, and I’m okay with your opinions there. That’s the best I can provide without going deep into personal information. I may or may not go in-depth without going through personal information. But that’s what I have experienced. 

I wanted to write this article because many high schoolers applying for college wanted to try quality college dining food. I am lucky to eat at one of those, at the University of California, Los Angeles (I’ll refer to it as UCLA because the university likes it that way, and the whole name, plus Los Angeles, is a long name to type). UCLA students believed it to be the number one dining hall food in the United States. Not that it’s the most significant selling point of this university, but it’s one of those perks. You would probably want that for these students and possibly you and may miss it after four years or something. It’s part of the college experience affiliated with a taste of success, even though it’s worthless without the hustle. So, let me settle the score and ask ourselves. Does college dining actually matter? 

I wanted to focus solely on the United States. The United States, especially in the top tier, has a highly romanticized college experience. They tend to have people eat at the dining halls as a means of bonding. Of course, other countries have experiences, like the United States and some in the United Kingdom. But to make this clear, I’m talking solely about college dining in the United States.

The main thing about college dining hall food was that there were varieties of these halls. I’ll talk about mine, but UCLA’s dining may not apply to you. But since I’m talking about mine, I will do a rundown of my college dining halls. UCLA has three main dining halls: buffet style, takeout style, and off-chain restaurants that pay the university to have facilities there. 

I would like to have a picture of the buffet style dining hall, but I rather not use it due to complex copyright laws I'm unfamiliar with (besides adding a works cited). For now, just search "De Neve Dining" if you have no clue what I'm yapping about.

The buffet style is what you associate with college dining. If you’ve never heard of buffets, you’ve never been a part of it. I suspect you got paid to attend college (absolutely bonkers for you. Congratulations. I hope the university financial aid won’t let you down), but your mileage may vary. With a payment or, in my case, a card swipe, you have access to a wide variety of food. These buffets give you a lot of food to choose from, and you don’t have to pay after that initial payment. In my case, some parts offer flavored ingredients, and you have to make your meal. Don’t worry. You’ll find it fun. Others offer you the whole course, and you can stack as many plates as you want. There are many tables for you to sit at, and they’re for you to eat with friends, like most eating places if you’re not eating fast food or something similar. I believe that most buffets have a time limit, and at some point, you must pay a bill for the food offered instead of the initial payment. But you’re not getting them at a buffet-style college dining hall.

Regarding the variety of food, they provided every kind of a balanced meal, from salads to main courses to soups and desserts. The food depends on what university you plan to attend, so ask current students for a more accurate assessment of the kinds and qualities of food offered. I feel that traditional American food is the most prominent like the most common variety is french fries and some form of chicken. 

My university has 4 buffet-style dining halls: De Neve, Bruin Plate (many called it B-plate), Epicuria, and FEAST. De Neve is the traditional style of American dining. However, each day has a different theme, ranging from food in select Latin American countries to food prominent in other parts of the country. It also has a Californian dining style, in case you have yet to hear of that. Bruin Plate offers what they call a “healthy” kind of food. The food isn’t healthy unless you’re going for the vegetarian options, but these things happen elsewhere. Epicuria and FEAST offer Italian and Asian food. FEAST changes the types of cuisines that usually go through most countries you know that are in Asia. And Epicuria rotates on different regions, which I suspect. They never claim that. I usually go with De Neve because I like eating meat and the rest don’t offer that. But not everyone likes going to De Neve because the quality of the food is not on par with the others. From what I remember, I think that the bar of quality of food for all four of them is low for dining halls costing like $25. They only cost a meal swipe each, and each meal swipe is $4, even though you’re probably paying around $14. Both of these prices are a steal. 

The next type of dining hall is the takeout style. These takeout styles require some form of payment, either a certain amount of real money or a card swipe, to get a full-course meal and probably a drink. These meals could be the ones seen in McDonalds or something like that, but they aren’t. They don’t offer much burgers, but something that could be considered a full-course meal. For some, you can customize whatever you want, but in my case, you order a specific meal you want and get that. This can be beneficial for some because they can figure out their eating habits compared to the buffet-style dining halls. But others find it limiting. Most of them offered you in some sort of a box. If you’re lucky, you can get a bag, usually done in the most environmental way possible (paper bags, of course). Many tie to a specific cuisine theme, which is why the options are generally limited, and they offer foods at different hours. 

Most students preferred that style due to the flexibility. These students have hectic lives. They have classes but also part-time jobs. Worst cases happen to be those off-campus. These students could be commuters and cannot waste that much money. Most students are probably busier than me, which is quite stupid. They move around a lot compared to me. As a result, most students probably lack the time to enjoy the buffets and prefer to grab a meal and bus their office hours or whatever they’re looking for. 

Lately, my university made a move in which students cannot use their meal swipes at off-chain restaurants on campus during early mornings and evenings. It caused such fevor among the student body, due to the inconvience of getting up to the student dormitory space to eat food.

The last category of college dining is the off-chain restaurants appearing on campus. This one is the least common because of my lack of knowledge. But these are the usual franchise restaurants that occur on campus; you know, Starbucks, Panda Express, McDonald's, etc. You can find them elsewhere, and we’ll talk about them in a couple of paragraphs. However, these are special because students work on them due to having on-campus privileges to adjust to their schedules. You can use your school’s meal plan instead of paying actual money. 

So that’s a quick look at the types of dining halls you’ll encounter at college, certainly the ones at UCLA. But why did I bring that up? 

There’s a more important question: why does this matter?

Because as a student, you’re probably not going to have all this time to eat this much quality food, depending on the university you’re going to. You’re going to deal with multiple classes, activities, and obligations. So, you may have to make time for college dining. 

Personally, I think quality food matters for your well. If you pick right, they can help you achieve better academic results, primarily through getting fewer health problems, the proper nutrients, and less risk of vomiting, and being healthy. But college dining hall food doesn’t matter much. For me, it matters more on what area you’re settling in because that’s where the food comes in. You know, if the area has good food, don’t worry. Unless you’re looking for a need-based full ride (you know who you are), an area suitable for you later on for your career and beyond is much more important than attempting to go to something like UCLA for dining hall food. 

Now I’m lucky to be there and get the best of Los Angeles food, but there are other areas that don’t have this advantage. It’s not like there are any disadvantages living in Los Angeles for the time I’m in college. There are. But it’s just that there are places with lots of places to eat. For you, you may not have that option due to many factors, not limited to not being able to buy that food. 

So, does college dining actually matter?

It does to an extent if you’re entirely on need-based financial aid. Actually, for everyone, it matters to an extent to have something to fuel you. But does it matter a lot? No. There are other things that make more sense to you when applying to college in the first place compared to getting the most out of your college experience.