B-school diet

Question

Hi, I'm a little concerned what my diet is going to consist of when I start b-school this fall. From what I hear, people are usually way too busy to cook, etc., so they almost always eat out. How healthy is the school cafeteria food? If you get food from elsewhere, what are the healthier choices? I would hate to subsist entirely on fast food, Chinese takeout, beer, etc. I think there was one guy on TV who ate nothing but McDonald's for a month - that's what I'm trying to avoid. That said, I'm a carnivore, so I need my chicken, pork, beef, lamb, kangaroo meat, etc. Any suggestions? Thanks.

nink · Answer

You will have time to cook. People cook all the time.

Sure, there are days when you must eat out and that is common too. But it's not the norm.

In terms of your options, it depends on where you will be attending school. If you go to a school like NYU, food is never going to be a problem. (your budget might). If you go to school in New Haven, your options are not as good as NYU but it still is a college town and you will have your options.

Z12 · Answer

I've been wondering about this as well. Does anybody bring their lunch to school? Or do most go to the cafeteria? I've always been amazed at how much money I can save by bringing my lunch to work everyday.

refurb · Answer

It all depends on the school. Tuck has a decent cafeteria in terms of selection, not super in terms of quality. Included in your tuition is a charge for a meal plan. I found that I could eat lunch at the cafeteria 5 days a week, plus a dinner or two a week and pretty much ended up with a zero balance at the end of the semester.

Roll that into dinners in town, social events with food and my own cooking, I found I could eat pretty healthy without a lot of effort.

Although you are really busy at business school, you do have time to cook. If you're smart about it and make a lot for left overs, you can eat very cheap with little effort. Buying meals fell into two categories: 1) didn't have time to make something, 2) social outings.

It's really a non-issue.

RF

Jerz · Answer

Agree with nink and refurb. It's really a matter of eating out as much or as little as you want. At the beginning of the year I cooked most weeknights, but then got lazy and started doing more take-out. For lunches, most people at Kellogg buy something at the cafeteria or somewhere else nearby, but I see plenty of people who bring their lunch too.

togafoot · Answer

Each school is different, at HKUST, they have massive cafeteria complexes serving a whole host of food at very cheap prices and a restaurant on campus. When I exchanged to Berkeley, they had a cafeteria on campus but the selection was limited and costly compared to HKUST, so I cooked more often.

Cooking shouldn't be a problem, there are plenty of dishes that take 20 minutes, or you can do some roasting.. prep time = 10 mins, then the cooking part you can do some work/reading whilst you wait for it to be done in the oven. Can even make it into a social/co-work event. Invite your 'assignment team' round, bung something in the oven, and do some work whilst its cooking, eat dinner, finish off work, and socialise. (* decent cooking skills maybe necessary to be able to do the cooking part efficiently)

Jonny4 · Answer

https://vimeo.com/5395446  - video of the canteen manager at Rotterdam School of management... not exactly cliff-edge entertainment, but some of you might find it amusing...

B-school diet

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