CPW, MIT, and College Life

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1

<p>So, we're at CPW. My child loves it here, and no one doubts the academic excellence of MIT, but as a parent, I am somewhat disappointed in one aspect of life here - dorms and meals. I realize MIT prides itself on how students have control over where they live and eat, but there is such disparity in dorm choices, locations, and "cultures" (none very clear to someone not already living here), and none offer three meals a day. If a student doesn't cook for himself/herself, then it seems one is limited to eating in the dorm room or floor, or taking out at the Student Center (Subway, Dunkin' Donuts, pizza, etc.).</p>

<p>Obviously, the system here works, but doesn't really compare favorably IMO to other schools (Yale, even the University of Florida). I would love to see MIT offer more meals per day in the dorms, and unlimited food at each meal (apparently an "experiment" presently at Simmons only).</p>

<p>As a parent, I'd like to hear what students and other parents have to say about their livivg and dining experiences at MIT. My child is almost definitely coming here, but I could use some reassurance that the picture isn't as unfavorable as it appears to me.</p>

2

<p>I would never have wanted a dining situation where three unlimited meals were available each day. Isn't that just a recipe for the Freshman 15? I really valued my ability to cook for myself for dinner, and I'm glad I wasn't in a situation where I was obligated to eat dining hall food more than I wanted to do so. For one thing, I often didn't have time to go somewhere for dinner, since I got back from my UROP with limited time to spare before cheerleading practice, for example.</p>

<p>Students aren't limited to Student Center food if they don't cook for themselves -- a number of restaurants around MIT accept Tech Cash, such as Quizno's, Au Bon Pain, and Domino's Pizza. Friends of mine who cook rarely also order food online from [campusfood.com[/url</a>]. Since Tech Cash is just a debit account, there's really no difference between getting food on Tech Cash or getting food with real money.</p>

<p>For lunch, of course, there are a large number of cafes and restaurants open on campus (my favorite is [url=<a href="http://steamcafe.mit.edu/%5DSteam"&gt;http://steamcafe.mit.edu/]Steam&lt;/a> Cafe](<a href="http://www.campusfood.com/campus.asp?campusid=68%5Dcampusfood.com%5B/url"&gt;http://www.campusfood.com/campus.asp?campusid=68)), and most people wouldn't go back to their dorms for lunch anyway, unless they lived somewhere very close to their academic classes.</p>

<p>MIT's dining system is very much like real life.</p>

3

<p>My boys both chose to live in a dorm without a meal plan and love it. They cook dinner most nights, which has become a social activity as they usually cook meals with one or two (or a group of) friends. They also eat sandwiches and soup. One eats out occasionally with his girlfriend and/or other friends- the other hates to spend money so he usually cooks. They're fine, don't each a lot of junk food and are glad they don't live in a dorm with a food plan.</p>

4

<p>There used to be two additional dining halls, one in Burton-Conner and one in East Campus, but both were closed because students loved to cook too much.</p>

<p>I live in a dorm that prides itself on cooking (Burton-Conner) and I don't cook, which would seem like an issue, but it isn't. Between burritos, burgers, Subway, groceries from LaVerdes, and trips into Boston I find myself more than happy with my food options.</p>

<p>Please please please don't let food be the deciding factor about MIT. It seems like parents freak out about their kids eating while at college, but I can't figure out why. WE LIKE FOOD! We get hungry, we eat, if anything we eat more than we should.</p>

5

<p>I too was not happy when I first saw the eating/cooking arrangements, especially since my s's cooking experience was on the level of PB&J. And, he elected to live in a dorm and not have a meal plan. However, he cooks with friends & eats at the occasional restaurant and looks as healthy as ever. When he comes home on breaks I give him new recipes, written on index cards, and he reports back to me later on his cooking success.
Fact is, most college cafeteria food isn't all that great- or nutritious- anyway.<br>
In short, not only is he getting an incredible education, but he's learning to cook too.
I wouldn't worry about it!!</p>

6

<p>My daughter lives in Burton-Conner and cooks for herself. She did say that some of the freshmen in her suite didn't really know how to cook anything when they arrived, although this has changed. The summer is a great opportunity to help your child practice cooking a variety of simple meals. Breakfast is usually cereal and fruit or sometimes yoghurt and juice. She does pick up a meal outside the dorm, often lunch (soup and sandwich), but sometimes also a dinner. We love foods from many countries, but she says the easiest kind of dinner to cook in the dorm is stir-fry. Sauteeing some strips of meat with fresh vegetables in a bit of stir-fry sauce to have over rice takes about 20 minutes total, and one can cook with friends. It ends up being a social meal in any event, because she says that anytime she cooks, people show up in the kitchen....
:-)
She learned how to cook a dozen sorts of quick meals over the summer before heading off to MIT. It was fun to cook together, and it was great seeing her become independent in the kitchen.</p>

7

<p>In terms of dining: it seems to me like the unlimited "all you can eat" plan really does nothing more than encourage weight gain. How much is it per meal, and it is really less than the cost of buying a regular meal? And do you really need that extra food? Also, we're talking about cafeteria food. Cafeteria food is basically NEVER healthy or tasty.</p>

<p>About the fact that the dining halls don't offer 3 meals per day- do you really need to eat breakfast in a dining hall? Who really feels the need to eat pancakes and omelettes for breakfast? Get a mini fridge and keep some milk in it, buy some cereal, some granola bars, yogurt, etc. Breakfast doesn't require a kitchen or a dining hall. That said, I <em>do</em> think that it's stupid that they are not open 7 days a week. It seems completely absurd to me- do they think we just don't eat on weekends? This is certainly a flaw, because dorms with dining halls don't have easy access to kitchens (except McCormick), so what exactly are you supposed to do?</p>

<p>I live in a dorm with kitchens, and I cook for myself almost all of the time. I've been pretty busy lately, so I don't have time to prepare lunch to take with me, so I've been eating on campus a lot. (I eat at the Steam Cafe, which is a pretty healthy choice- basically rice and stews, soups, lots of vegetables, etc.) And yeah, sometimes it's hard to have time to prepare a lot of food, but mashed potatoes out of the box, Progresso soup and those "add water and cook for 15 minutes" rice and pasta packages are really quite a few steps above frozen dinners, and not very hard. And that's only when I don't really have time to cook for real. Also, I eat SO much more healthily now that I ever did at home or would if I could only eat in a dining hall. I buy all my own food, so I just stopped buying soda and junk food, and things with trans fat, and chemicals pretending to be fruits (did you know, of all the varieties of applesauce that Mott's sells, exactly one doesn't contain corn syrup?). So yeah, it can be a bit of a challenge to find your own food all the time, but you have to learn how to do this somehow.</p>

<p>Also, because no one has addressed your concerns about housing yet: we love it this way. Really. Typically, parents get anxious about any system that isn't similar to the way their college experience worked. My parents asked me a million questions about the housing process, and seemed so stressed out over it. Then I moved into my temp room and webt through the rush events and was like "sweet, free food!" I don't see how having lots of dorm choices could be a bad thing. Sure, the process isn't by any means simple, but it's completely worth it.</p>

8

<p>Meals are kind of an issue, especially late nights on weekends. But I would feel like I was being babied, with a 24hour meal plan.</p>

9

<p>I made up a handy dandy cookbook for my kid when he headed off to MIT a few years ago. That and a care package of some useful cooking tools and a couple good knives seemed to do the trick. He figured out how to keep fed. (And his younger brother who goes to a college with a required cafeteria food plan almost never uses more than a few of the meals on his plan each week because of his schedule, and ends up wishing he could cook. I guess the grass is always greener elsewhere, LOL!)</p>

10

<p>The MIT kids my child knows work hard and spend a lot of time in intense extra curricular activities so that traditional dining halls with traditional dining hours would not function in the way they function in other colleges; too many students eat at peculiar times. That being said, some MIT students are simply too busy to shop, cook and clean up every night. There are two obvious options for students like this: One option is to choose a dormitory (Next House, Simmons, MacGregor or Baker) that serves dinner weeknights and food over an extended period of time. Another option is to move sophomore year to a fraternity, sorority or independent living group that has a chef or some dinner arrangement. In addition to these options, MIT culture offers a lot of evening activities (i.e. committee meetings, discussion groups, religious services) that serve dinner.</p>

<p>On a related note, I think the absence of central dining area says a lot about MIT's social life. Another way to explain this is that this child thought the residential college system at Harvard and Yale was confining, whereas my other child thought that living and eating with a limited group in the same setting almost every night would ensure a safe, comfortable way to meet many different types of people. I think perhaps the variety of dining settings and options at MIT implies that students have a larger variety of ways of making social connections than at other places.</p>

<p>In addition, most of the college students I know, no matter what dining options their colleges offer, eat breakfast in their dorms or rooms. Lunch at MIT is easy to find not too far from classrooms.</p>

11

<p>Oh, that reminds me- my freshman year I got fed free dinner 3 times a week- once with my advising seminar, and twice with The Tech, the newspaper (at news meetings and on whatever day I had a deadline- The Tech has a lot of money).</p>

12

<p>On another note, my friend's brother who graduated from Brown a few years ago graduated without ever having cooked a meal in his life. He then moved into an apartment in Providence and lived off of ramen and cheese and crackers for a year before finally learning how to COOK.</p>

<p>=] I'd much rather learn in college.</p>

13

<p>This is a timely thread. Thanks! </p>

<p>At CPW I found that everybody I met loved their food arrangement.
Not necessarily the food :p but the arrangement let them have the right
amount of time for social interaction and distance.</p>

<p>In fact I went into CPW thinking the food scene to be a negative and
came out with the distinct impression that it was liberating and fun. The
incredible variety of individuals just shine a light on every other facet
of MIT life one can have.</p>

<p>....hmmm, after 3 nights I am now an expert....? ;)</p>

14

<p>The reason there aren't more dining halls is that students don't want them. As has already been pointed out, the place that was supposed to be the east side's "community dining experience" got shut down for lack of interest (and there was much rejoicing). Who eats breakfast in a dining hall anyway?</p>

<p>On my own hall, the lounge that was the primary social nexus for the hall connected to the hall kitchen, making it ideal for social interaction through eating. At Random, floor kitchens are considered major social centers for the dorm in general, even for those who aren't actually cooking (most of the time I hung out with friends at Random, it was in a kitchen). This sort of thing is true at every dorm without a dining hall that I know anything about. People get the wrong idea about students eating in the dorms, and assume this means that they are eating alone in their rooms. Nothing could be further from the case.</p>

<p>I'm also an incompetent cook, but really. In addition to the multitude of options available on campus, it does not take much skill to fix yourself a sandwich, heat something reasonable in the microwave, make a salad, or scramble eggs. If you don't want to deal with that, you can go eat at one of the places that has a dining hall, get food from the student center, find leftover free food from an event (I knew people who lived for most of a term this way, doing it as a group and making a social thing of it), and so on. And many FSILGs have their own meal plans. There are so many options, and you can choose whichever one you want.</p>

<p>Many living groups have cooking groups, where people take turns cooking for the whole group. They will teach you to cook, if you don't know and want to learn.</p>

<p>Please, please, please, do not stop your kid from going to MIT over this, and please, please, please, do not try to pressure the administration into putting in more dining halls. The students who spend their time defending student culture have enough to deal with already - there is very little worse for them than hearing that their beloved way of life is under attack again because a parent complained that it wasn't enough like their mental image of a college.</p>

15

<p>Both the 'parent' AND 'student' position articultated here are merely defenses of personal preferences. Neither has the right to speak authoritatively on the "correct" culture for an entire campus. I am sure many students, primarily male, would like a 'traditional' all you can eat meal plan. I am equally certain that students with vegan or ethnic dietary preferences would likely prefer no meal plan. To argue about this based on personal perceptions of the correct campus culture is at best misguided and at worst intolerant of the views of others.</p>

16

<p>Mia305: "Both the 'parent' AND 'student' position articultated here are merely defenses of personal preferences. Neither has the right to speak authoritatively on the "correct" culture for an entire campus."</p>

<p>Huh? The OP asked for opinions: "As a parent, I'd like to hear what students and other parents have to say about their living and dining experiences at MIT." As far as I can tell, everyone on this thread has obliged.</p>

17

<p>I heard they stopped serving breakfast because no one was coming to the dining halls in the morning. They typically stay up really late at night.</p>

<p>My S is a FR in Baker. He's never cooked at all, other than maybe heating up leftover take-out food, and he won't likely ever cook at MIT as he plans to move into a frat. I think he does get tired of the options on campus for breakfast and lunch, but students at colleges w/ full dining halls get tired of their food too.</p>

<p>After FR year, students at other colleges often opt for a pay-as-you-eat plan because they don't come close to using a full 21-meal plan anyway.</p>

<p>Yeah, some things you saw at CPW about housing are not like other colleges. But I agree, they are not reasons to turn down MIT. </p>

<p>We heard this numerous times and it turned out to be true: "even though everyone at MIT is not like you, you will be able to find people like yourself at MIT; don't worry about that". This has turned out to be more important than things like the meal plan.</p>

18

<p>mia305, you have presumed ;) to speak for all males.....he he :)</p>

<p>The views posted are simply Jessiehl's (assuming that is who your post is
flaming) perspective. </p>

<p>I get the brunt of your message though, i.e student culture or its perception
is individually defined though experienced as an collective or something
deep like that....and no one should persume to talk for others....</p>

<p>Mia :p the point you seem to be making is that there are students
who would like to have a more predictable 3 times a day food environment
(sic: though they are probably in the minority...?)</p>

<p>I felt the same way prior to CPW this year and then reaizied the hours most
MIT students keep are nto conducive for this to seemingly work effectively</p>

<p>:)</p>

19

<p>
[quote]
Neither has the right to speak authoritatively on the "correct" culture for an entire campus.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>My comments (both those on the dining system and those about parents who complain to administrators) are based on four years as an MIT student talking to other MIT students about these issues, including three representing students and student culture in advocacy positions (including on the Campus Dining Advisory Board, where "But some parent complained that it's not what they expect college dining to be like!" was a frequent argument made by admins). </p>

<p>They are also based on facts - it is undisputed that what was supposed to be the east side's dining hall closed from lack of interest, and it is also undisputed that, a couple of years before I got to MIT, Campus Dining tried to impose meal plans on the whole student body, and there was such an outcry from the student body that they reversed the decision.</p>

<p>Of course there are exceptions - there are ALWAYS exceptions - but that doesn't preclude a general consensus. Could I also not say that MIT student culture is very science/engineering-focused, because there are exceptions to that too?</p>

20

<p>
[quote]
Both the 'parent' AND 'student' position articultated here are merely defenses of personal preferences. Neither has the right to speak authoritatively on the "correct" culture for an entire campus.

[/quote]

But you'll note that both the students and parents on the board have spoken positively about MIT's dining situation, which suggests that support for a cooking-based culture and for eating in the residential areas with floormates is strong at MIT. </p>

<p>That doesn't mean that everyone loves it, or that everyone would have it be exactly the same if he or she got to pick, but it is a strongly cherished feature of MIT life.</p>