<p>Ddog, First of all, many congrats on making the decision to attend NCSU. I hope you'll love it there.</p>
<p>Re: meal plans.....8 meals a week is not that much. Will you have a car at NCSU to go to the grocery store to buy extra food? You can buy stuff at the C Stores on campus but you'll end up spending a lot more money/board bucks. </p>
<p>Those board bucks get away from you faster than you might think. Of course my S is a big eater,lol. He stopped in for a Chik-Fil-a Biscuit many mornings between classes. </p>
<p>For your first semester, I would opt for a bigger meal plan. You'll be able to figure out pretty quickly how much you actually use it. If you feel as if you're not getting your money's worth out of it during Fall semester, you can have it changed to a lower meal plan for Spring semester (you can change it via the university dining website before Fall semster ends) . </p>
<p>Also, in the first semester, you'll be meeting lots of new friends and often may want to eat meals together. Food is sort of a bonding experience,lol. </p>
<p>I remember my S calling the first week saying he had to have a bigger meal plan (we had gone with 12) because all his friends were going to the cafeteria together a lot and it was annoying to him to have try to figure out how many meals he had left for the week every time he wanted to go eat with his friends.</p>
<p>You would hate to have to say "I can't go because I already ate my one meal today at Fountain" and miss getting to hang out with new friends. So then you would prob. go anyway and end up paying for food (even something small). If you have the meal plan that just allows for one meal per day, you may find yourself spending more money on food than you would have if you had opted for a larger meal plan.</p>