Eat This, Take That: A Freshman’s Guide to the Dining Hall

Despite the three empty plates in front of you, you’ll be hungry in five minutes. Be proactive and make the dining hall work for you.
Here are examples of pocket sized hauls, as seen in Hill:
- 4–5 pieces of large fruit (pears, apples, bananas, oranges)
- 20 packs of salt/sugar/tea bags
- 10 packs of hot chocolate mix
- 10 packets of cream cheese or butter

Another popular technique is to fill to–go paper cups with pretty much anything: raisins, granola, strawberries, pickles­—take your pick. Some students even fill them with condiments (yes, we saw you walk out of Commons with a paper cup filled with ketchup).

And yes, some daring souls go all out. We’ve spotted:

- A pumpkin—apparently used to decorate a room for Halloween
- An eggplant­—because apparently they are “cute”
- An entire jar of peanut butter from Hill—kudos to this person: but how did you get out and what were you doing with that much PB?
- Coconuts (Ed. note: when did the dining halls get coconuts?)
- One of the tubs of ice cream from Hill—the entire cardboard tub.

If only the thieving would stop at food—many freshmen find the dining halls a convenient place to put together their dining sets. A group of four guys from Harnwell confessed to sneaking out cups, mugs, plates and cutlery. They now have a wonderfully stocked kitchen that technically didn’t cost them a penny.