<p>Have any of you on CC been a part of the residential leadership community at tech? A few of my friends were in it as freshmen but I am looking for other perspectives. For example, is the dorm(peddrew-yates) better than other freshmen dorms? or How hard are the seminars that all students in the program are required to take?</p>
<p>My girlfriend did it, and the dorms are MUCH MUCH MUCH better. They're suite style dorms, so you get a common room and a bathroom for your suite. Don't know about the seminars, but they didn't seem to take up too much time.</p>
<p>PY is amazing. Sort of. You're closer to Dietrick (dining hall) which is good and bad, and you're not far from Owens/Holie Grill (im gonna miss HG..owens sucked though, I only went there when I was bored and needed boring food). But, you're farther from the DF (I was in Eggleston which is right smack on the front/top of the Drillfield...5min walk to class! woo!) than some dorms. But, better than Lee/AJ. So, the dorm is a great perk, AND it's A/C!
For the seminars, they're apparently easy as pie, good GPA booster, AND you meet everyone in your dorm pretty much.</p>
<p>I happen to hate VT's dorm system, but this might be rewarding in the sense that even though you're in a suite, you'll be meeting everyone through the program.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, I forgot, you get air conditioning. I'd do it if I were you.</p>
<p>Wait, did I read that right and you liked Hokie Grill more than Owens? I mean, HG was alright when you needed to pick up a quick personal pan pizza or chick-fil-a, but Owens had all kinds of food, and it was good too! The sandwich place made great sandwiches, the pasta was pretty good, the breakfast was great, the meat place had some pretty good food if you caught them on the right day. I ate Owens for a good 2/3rds of my meals, I'd say. Then again I lived in Barringer, so walking all the way down to West End (the best food on campus, by far) was annoying, as well as D2 and DX.</p>
<p>I think I went into DX all of 6 times the entire year. It was mainly if I was in on a Fri/Sat night doing work and my hallmate and I wanted food, or if I was in one of the other dorms and DX was on the way back. D2, once every week or two, maybe less (too far)
HG was good for the quick sandwiches and the BBQ place. Chik-fil-a's lemonade was heaven too haha.
Owens I ate their brunch religiously (sooo good!). But other than that, it was plain pasta or a hamburger from there, occasionally a sandwhich, and a smoothie.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, I have no idea what I ate last year hahaha. Au Bon Pain was frequent, but I don't ever remember eating 7 dinners a week, much less 7 lunches, and breakfast was 3-4 times a week, if it was a good week.</p>
<p>I'd eat breakfast most weekday mornings, but it was always cereal or oatmeal from my room. It seemed like I split lunch pretty evenly on eating in the dining halls versus eating in, but towards the end of the year when I realized how much dining money I was going to have left over I ate out a lot more. Dinner was almost 100% eating at the cafeterias though, unless I could score some free pizza at a meeting or I was going off campus with friends somewhere. The food at Tech is top three in the nation, which I have to say sure didn't hurt when I was picking a college, haha.</p>
<p>Everyone in my hall wrote hate mail to Dining Services asking them to do some kind of breakfast at HG or Owens. My hallmate and I loovveedd going to D2 breakfast, but with me having three 8ams and tuesday I usually slept in from my monday night all-nighter routine, friday was the only morning we ever really went, and we only went 5-8 times the whole year. It sucked.<br>
But yeah, I normally was eating something on the go so I rarely sat down in one of the halls. But, I don't think I really ever hated anything I ate...soo..
UVA's food isn't bad per say, it's just that they try to hard to have a ton of different stuff so it's hard to manage them all. I ate there during Orientation and had a simple turkey/tomato/bacon on sourdough (mmm!), fries, and applesauce (god I love dining halls hahah) and was content.<br>
I liked VT's dining plan where it was pretty much a debit card, whereas UVA I have a real dining plan. I can either get 50/80/100 meals per semester or 10/13/15/unlimited per week, and then they have Plus dollars which are used like a debit card at a la carte places. I somewhat like this better because I got the 50 so I'll probably eat at the halls for breakfast on Sat/Sun, and then have an extra meal or two a week that I can use for b/l/d with friends. Then, I have a ton of Plus dollars that I can use on food items in the on-grounds convenience store (soo nice!) or on a la carte items, or I can use it on a meal in the dining hall. A bit more flexibility, and now I'm somewhat forced into eating in a dining hall, which is nice because it's an excuse to eat with other people. I can still get it to go, but I'll probably try not to because it's a slightly longer walk back to my apartment (Eggleston was a stone's throw to HG/Owens, which was really nice). But, I still have money to use on the go.</p>
<p>One note on the food plan: GET THE CHEAPEST ONE! You can always add money to it later, but you can't take money that you don't use off. Other than that I like how VT does the food plan, though.</p>
<p>thx for all of the responses. i have been at a week long leadership workshop and computers were not allowed. anyway it looks like everyone had nothing but good things to say about RLC.</p>
<p>Like I said, I didn't go through it myself, but my girlfriend did and she never said anything bad about it. I think she met a lot of people though it too. Plus she got the great dorms. I'd do it if I didn't have too many credits already (plus I don't know if it's open to sophomores.)</p>
<p>I agree with chuy on the meal plan. I think I had about $100 that I didn't use from the semesters combined. You can always add more, it's really easy and instant. If you add enough first semester that equals the bigger plan, go for the bigger the second time. But the dining dollars are limited to stuff in the dining hall, so I found it hard to use them all (i wish they had let you use them on food stuff in the general store)</p>
<p>If you do have a lot left over though, you can stock up on powerade and bottled water. But you only need so much.</p>