On Niche.com’s list of Best College Food in America, UCLA has been the frontrunner for eight years running. With four residential dining halls and seven boutique restaurants, the quality and versatility of the campus food is unparalleled across the nation. Students living in on-campus housing can choose from meal plans that include 11, 14 and even 19 meals per week, but those who don’t live on campus can only choose to opt in or out of one meal plan: seven meals each week, strictly from dining locations located on the Hill for $1,155 per quarter. Is it worth it?
As an incoming transfer student this past summer, I knew I only had half of the amount of time most other students did to experience the culinary wonder that is the UCLA dining halls. Naturally, I paid the extra lofty sum for the 7P meal plan for my first quarter, because I wanted to see what the hype was about and feel more connected to the campus, since they’d unfortunately placed me in housing almost a mile away from the Hill itself. If it weren’t for the meal plan, I don’t think I would have ever ventured to the northwestern area of campus, since I have no other reason to be on the residential side. This, unfortunately, was the very problem with the meal plan as well.
Living so far away, and being an English major who mostly took classes far on North Campus (two of my three fall quarter classes were in the Public Affairs building), getting to the dining halls was a treacherous commute. I would walk at least 20 minutes from the Weyburn Apartments to the Hill, scramble for lunch as quickly as I could and then walk another twenty minutes from the dining hall to my lecture. Needless to say, I was always hot and already hungry again by the time I reached my classroom and I frustrated that the long lines and slow walkers had made me run behind on time yet again. While this dilemma may have been avoidable if I’d given myself more of a buffer between leaving home and the beginning of my lecture, I was often rushing from work or other commitments that simply made the meal plan a greater stress than asset.
This is not, of course, to say that the food itself was not good. In fact, I probably looked forward to my Rendezvous bowl and Bruin Plate salmon more than other students. However, it was simply not convenient enough to be worth the hefty price tag of $15 per meal. I also noticed that grocery shopping became infinitely easier when I was able to plan meals for the week without taking into consideration the random runs to the dining hall to burn the swipes I regretted purchasing in the first place.
If you’re a first-time student at UCLA, it’s not a bad idea to try the meal plan for one quarter. It’s a nice option to have and there are some great dining halls to choose from. However, from my experience as a student living out in Westwood, I would argue that it’s not worth the extra effort and bill when you can reallocate that time to picking up a coffee or Chipotle in town. After all, this is just my opinion – for yourself, there’s only one way to find out if UCLA deserves the #1 national ranking for dining.
