Dining hall food is one of the great maligned pieces of college life. Unfortunately, cafeteria food is cafeteria food, whether you’re at Stony Brook or Florida State or Montana. But as students become more health-conscious and more diverse in their populations — and as a result, their eating habits — more campuses are responding to the need. USA Today has a nice piece today about how some schools are building in more organic food to their dining options.
It seems logical to me that college campuses, as (usually) forward-thinking places catering to a (usually) environmentally-savvy student body, would go down this road. At Stony Brook, we offer a Kosher deli and an Asian restaurant among our dining options; we have large Jewish and Asian populations, so it seems natural that we would offer these choices.
When you’re visiting colleges, go eat in the dining halls. It may seems like a frivolous thing, but it’s important; one student I met with today at Southington High School said a friend of hers made his college choice almost exclusively on the dining options. If you’re going to be living somewhere for four years, make sure you’ll have something to eat! (Of course, that’s one way to avoid the “freshman fifteen”…)