There is a very real possibility that at some point you will starve for a little bit here at Colgate. I hate to break it to you freshmen who think you’ve got it made swiping and swiping with absolutely zero respect, but it is true. Once you graduate from the unlimited meal plan and move down the hill, it is literally only downhill from there in the food department. 

First-years–do not take your current situation for granted. Everyone complains about Frank and Sodexo– and now Chartwells–but I thought it was a pretty sweet gig when I was in your shoes. When is another time in your adult life when you will have unlimited access to a variety of that much food that you do not have to shop for or prepare? I can name two situations: if you are rich enough to go on a cruise someday, which only lasts a week, or if you hire a personal chef. I know this is Colgate but chances are you will not be that rich. Which brings me to my next point: food in the real world is expensive as hell. Who knew fruits and vegetables are basically priced like rare jewels? I sure did not, which is why, now that I’m no longer on a meal plan, I have scurvy.

One day in the near future you will be living down the hill and your diet will consist of ramen, dry cereal and tap water. Tap water is the same thing you use to rinse bacteria off of your body parts and you can also ingest it. Think about it: that is no way to live. Even if you have the unlimited meal plan, there will be days when the temperature drops into the negatives and it is a blizzard outside and you will think, “Woah, I am not leaving (insert first-year dorm). I would rather eat these weird crackers that Grandma so kindly mailed me than trek through the tundra to eat a warm, healthy meal.”

Even though it is challenging, starving in college is like a rite of passage. Someday when you are old and decrepit, around 40, you can tell your kids, “College is not the same as it was when I was young. It used to be horrible. We had to physically walk uphill across a beautiful campus, stop to take a selfie, then attend rigorous academic courses that only the finest institutions in the world could parallel. And to top it all off, we were too lazy, cold and broke to go shopping for quality food. We had to settle for these things called Brown Bags where you listen to a relevant speaker or presentation and do nothing and they give you free catered food. Yuck!” Blatant sarcasm aside, you get my point: We have it pretty good here.

My advice is to just find any kind of food, put in in your mouth and wait until you have a steady income to worry about what you eat. You have more important things to be concerned with as a student. Also, if you haven’t already noticed, 90 percent of the Colgate student body seems to have the metabolism of an athletic hummingbird, so there is literally nothing all you naturally beautiful people can shove into your mouth holes will set you back as far as health goes. The moral of the story is that you will not die of starvation in college. I promise.