Dining

Dining This is another one of those entries thats going to make admissions cringe when they see the title. Dining is the current hot topic at MIT for a variety of reasons, none of which Im going to touch. The long and short of it is that there are very few people on campus who can grasp exactly whats going on right now and its simply not responsible of me to talk about such a big issue when its currently in a state of development. What I will discuss is how the current dining system at MIT operates. That was one of my biggest questions about MIT, it didnt seem to be explained well in any of the material and it also seemed like a really critical issue. Probably my sketchiest prefrosh moment was due to a lack of dining understanding (thats a story for a later entry, or for Laura to write about). To fix this issue, I present to you everything you need to know about dining (for now!). There are six main options for getting food at MIT (more specifically, dinner), and they are: 1) House Dining Membership 2) Dining Dollars 3) Tech Cash 4) Cook! 5) Cash 6) Fraternities, Sororities, and Independent Living Groups Straight down, here we go: 1) House Dining Membership House Dining Membership (HDM) is about as close to a traditional dining program as you can get at MIT. A $300 dollar fee at the beginning of the semester goes towards all of your dinner purchases over the semester BUT . . . this does not mean free meals. HDM gives you 50% off all of your dinners, so you still have to pay, just not as much. There are 5 dorms that have dining halls where HDM is accepted: 1) Baker 2) McCormick 3) Next 4) Simmons 5) Ashdown If you live in any of these dorms, you are AUTOMATICALLY enrolled in the House Dining Membership and must participate in it. Generally, the dorms are open for dinner every night when theres school the next day (meaning no dinner on Fridays but there is dinner on Sundays). PROS If you eat more than $600 worth of dinner, youre getting a half price discount on everything you eat! CONS Most people, realistically, dont eat that much food. You essentially have to eat in the dining halls every night. People will argue with me about this, and of course there are exceptions, but its difficult to eat enough food to make this worth it. Especially when you factor in trips to Boston restaurants (a must) and various clubs and activities that will give you food. Also, walking to another dorm for food is an inconvenience, especially since dorms are kind of spread out (at least enough to be annoying). It feels weird not eating in your own home, surrounded by people you dont know. Realistically, it doesnt happen as often as MIT would hope. 2) Dining Dollars Dining Dollars is money you can load directly onto your student ID card. The Dining Dollars account can only be used in all dining halls, restaurants, food courts, cafes on campus, card reader-equipped vending machines and for late night pizza delivery from Dominos. PROS You know exactly how much money youre spending on food. You also wont be tempted to spend money from your ID card on anything but food. A good way for parents to budget money just for food for you. Its also very easy for parents to load Dining Dollars into an account for you! CONS Its an unnecessary division of funds unless you really dont trust yourself to allot money for food. 3) TechCash TechCash essentially turns your student ID into an on-campus debit card. Money on your TechCash account can be spent not only on food, but also on anything in La Verdes (the student convenience store in the student center), a hardware store down the street, random fundraisers you see in Lobby 10, yearbooks, class hoodies, the MIT bookstore, haircuts in the student center, and all sorts of other cool services. PROS You dont have to carry a bunch of cash around with you. Your ID card is all you need for most things youll be buying on campus. The money comes from your student account if youd like, making it a popular option for loans. Loans that cover books, food, and various other amenities often go into TechCash because its designed to let you purchase things that will help you in college. Its also very easy for parents to load a TechCash account for you! CONS Its not accepted everywhere. Sometimes youll need cash or debit cards, especially for trips into Boston. It can also be a pain if you dont carry cash and rely fully on TechCash. 4) Cook! A lot of the dorms without dining halls have kitchens. More specifically I believe Burton-Conner, East Campus, Random Hall, Senior House, and Bexley all have kitchens. Also, as mentioned in the comments below, apparently all dorms have some type of kitchen access if youre interested in cooking. A lot of students choose to live in these dorms in large part because of the kitchens and the freedom to cook what they want without being restricted to what the school feeds them. PROS How you eat is up to you. You can eat what you want, when you want. There is a grocery store with almost everything you need just down the street and there are normally plenty of kitchens or plenty of space for anybody whod like to cook. Dorms are often filled with the delicious smells of cinnamon buns, cookies, and soup. CONS A lot of college students (ME!) dont know how or have no interest in cooking. Cooking requires all of your own kitchen supplies and requires you to buy food at the grocery store (the one most frequented does NOT take TechCash). Cooking takes time and effort, something many people dont have the time or desire to do. 5) Cash Buy food on campus or in Boston with cash. Everybody takes cash! PROS Everybody takes cash so you have access to everything! CONS Parents cant fill up your cash! Also, carrying cash requires a wallet that can hold cash. You can also run out or not have enough. Loans dont really filter into cash, so any cash you spend is probably your own. 6) Fraternities, Sororities, and Independent Living Groups I dont know a lot about the FSILG dining options, but there appear to be a lot of people willing to answer questions about it in the comments. The gist of it is that many FSILGs offer dining plans if you choose to eat at their houses. Plans vary from house to house, so independent research would probably be the way to go, or just ask for help in the comments. NON-DINNER MEALS Since dining halls are dinner-only, most students will eat breakfast either at the student center, various food trucks or cafes, even at Sunnys Diner down the street. Ill leave lunch discussion for another entry (just because theres so much). BOTTOM LINE You want my advice? Ok, not just my advice, but also the advice of the people I live with and also many many many people Ive interacted with that are members of House Dining. Whats the advice? Avoid the House Dining Membership, avoid Dining Dollars, go with either cooking, TechCash, or cash, whichever youre more comfortable with. A lot of people who live in dorms that are forced into paying the $300 for House Dining are unhappy with the automatic membership because it restricts them to a dining hall every evening instead of giving them the freedom to eat elsewhere. Half the point of MIT is that its a great opportunity to experience as much as you can, including eating in as many places as you can. Dining Dollars is just an unnecessary restriction on an otherwise normal TechCash account. Anybody with a reasonable amount of self control would be better off with just TechCash, spending it only on food. Its there to bail you out if you need it (in case you need something other than food) but is available for food as well. Also, I dont know a single person who uses Dining Dollars (they probably exist though, just not en mass). Cooking is the heart and soul of many dorms here. BUT! You dont have to know how to cook to live in a dorm with kitchens. I live in Burton-Conner, a dorm with 6+ kitchens on each of its 9 floors. I cant cook. At all. I love Burton-Conner! I eat at the student center, I eat delivery, I eat in Boston, and sometimes Ill microwave some soup or some hot dogs. Food just isnt an issue, so no worries. MIT will likely get angry at me for suggesting that you avoid their dining memberships. Im sorry MIT, just sharing what I feel the most useful and most common sentiments are. The fact that a lot of people are unhappy with House Dining and try to avoid it is kind of a problem, which is why there is currently a ton of controversy on campus about the dining program. Parents seem to be concerned that there isnt a central dining hall or that kids dont have access to food (remember point number 1 in this entry?). Lack of central dining concerns a lot of students too. As I said earlier, having to travel to various dining halls in various dorms is kind of an inconvenience. At this point, your most economic and perhaps healthiest option is to purchase or cook your own food with your own money. Thats my suggestion, take it or leave it. Thats dining! Comment with questions, but Id like to request that no discussion of current on-campus dining negotiations occur in the comments. Nothing is concrete or finalized enough to publish. When everything is resolved, somebody will publish the result. UPDATE Ok, I revised some things and mentioned that all dorms have some type of kitchen or cooking facilities (I didnt actually know this). I also fixed the Dining Dollars mistake that Laura mentioned (again, I didnt know this). I mentioned lunch but dont really want to get into it because this was mostly to talk about dining plans and dinner. Again, Preferred Dining does not actually exist. Its now called House Dining Membership, but theyre essentially the same thing. If you read comments referring to Preferred Dining then they are actually talking about House Dining Membership. I mentioned FSILGS but dont know enough about the individual house plans to comprehensively talk about them so questions will have to be answered in the comments.