Occidental College
Campus Conversations
Eating (and the challenges that come with it)!
Blogger: Sarah Sterling
If there is one thing you should know about my life at Oxy, it is that every social event in my life is centered on food. Whether it’s a quick snack before class, dinner and drinks for a friend’s birthday, or cooking a meal with my roommates—we are all always eating. 
One aspect of life at Occidental that initially got me excited to go to school here was the mandatory 3-years of on campus living. Some people aren’t excited about living on campus for so long, but I thought it sounded fun and would make my entire college experience easier and more community based. BUT, before I committed to Oxy I made sure that if I was going to live on campus for that long that there would be delicious food available to me at all times. And for 3 happy years, the Marketplace and the Tiger Cooler kept me fed and watered.
But now, as a senior, I’m experiencing a new kind of hell called “cooking.” While I loved residential living, I decided to go off campus for senior year. I figured this move would help me transition into the real world after graduation. Little did I know that I would soon starve to death from lack of experience in the kitchen.
What the heck is a colander? How do you crush garlic? Am I ever actually going to use a spatula?
In a matter of weeks I was withering away to nothing… Well, not exactly, but I was completely hopeless at feeding myself and quickly ended up as the FourSquare Mayor of every restaurant in Eagle Rock.
Luckily, I’ve survived almost a month off campus thanks to more food savvy friends and Google (Google, how long does spaghetti sauce keep?). And I am surprisingly grateful that I have been allowed, by Oxy, to have both an on and off campus experience while in college. More than half of my time here was spent developing a network of friends on campus and becoming a core part of campus life through residential housing, and now, for my final year, I get to dip my toes into the sometimes frustrating world of adulthood while still getting to goof around as a student. As Hannah Montana would say, it is the best of both worlds.