Every college student across the world has to find their way to eat. Thankfully, a lot of institutions have provided resources to make that possible. Most institutions offer a meal plan to help satisfy this need. At Rowan University, there are four meal plans and two block plans that are offered to students who attend.

Meal plans tend to be more of a requirement for first-year students who live on campus. According to the Rowan University Residential Learning and University Housing department, all first-year students who live in one of the residence halls are required to purchase either the All-Access or 14-meal plan for their first semester, while all other residence hall students select from the other corresponding plans (All-Access, 14, 10, or 7-meal plans). 

While the meal plan system is set up to help students whenever they want to eat, there are also students on campus who live in dorm or apartment spaces and find that cooking can also help them satisfy their needs. 

One student in particular, named Demi Adepoju, 21, an early childhood education major, is among the students who tend to cook in her apartment space in the 230 Victoria apartments. Adepoju shared that she does cook but takes heed of safety concerns.

“I do cook a little bit, of course, I’m a lot more cautious here because I don’t want the fire alarm to go off, and I don’t want people to hate me because the fire alarm is going off,” said Adepoju. 

Francesca White, 25, an English education major at Rowan, does not live on campus at all and lives at home with her grandmother. But she shares that she does the cooking for both of them and tries to focus on the nutritional aspect of cooking at home.

“She used to do a lot of the cooking, but as she got older, I started cooking for both of us. I usually meal prep something big for the week,” said White.

With the meal prep strategy, White says that a major focus in her cooking is keeping herself healthy.

“I’ve lost about 100 pounds over the last few years, so a big part of it is making sure I am getting nutrients, fiber, [and] protein,” said White. 

For other students, such as Genevieve Mount, a junior psychology major who lives in the Rowan Boulevard Apartments, cooking on campus is more of a quick convenience, as she doesn’t have time to cook a full meal. 

“I usually cook pre-made things like boxed mac and cheese, chicken nuggets [and] easy things to make,” said Mount. 

However, even though Mount prefers to cook easy and pre-made meals, she shared that she lives with people who tend to cook more.

“My roommate does cook chicken cutlets and things like that,” said Mount.

While there are multiple options for students to receive a meal on campus, such as meal plans, buying food from other stores, etc, cooking does play a role in how students receive a meal. 

Different students have different motivations for cooking themselves a meal, as well as different methods of achieving the same. But overall, cooking food for Rowan students in particular comes from these different methods and motivations, but serves the same purpose.

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