D is for Dining Hall

It’s not easy to escape the freshman fifteen. All you can eat at every meal, and there’s never just one thing for dinner. Seven days a week, you can have a cheeseburger, chili fries, and a hash brown patty. If you want chocolate soft serve topped with cocoa puffs for lunch, go ahead. You never have to eat your peas, but you can have peanut butter and waffles every day.

Outside the dining hall, the food options don't help either. Beer in over-sized red plastic cups are trademarks of the Heaven-and-Hell-themed Friday night progressive and the frat party with aloha shirts. Dorm rooms have a stash of ramen, cookies mailed from your roommate’s mom, sun chips, and a box of froot loops stolen from the dining hall.

However, over time most students learn to make good choices. While the freshmen have “fifteen,” sophomores and juniors aren't branded by designated numbers. The dining hall becomes a crash course in feeding yourself, and the meals become a practice run for the after-college world.