Even though complaining about dining hall food was a daily occurrence your first year of college, you'll be missing the mystery meat pasta when you can no longer swipe yourself through every meal.
Without your almighty meal plan, eating becomes an event requiring planning and preparing. If you want to eat in, you have to cook and clean. If you want to go out, you have to spend your own REAL money. Why can't food blocks be used in the real world?
Having a meal plan was always a great way to meet friends, especially older ones who don't have a meal plan. Your mind may be telling you they're only using you for free food, but your heart says they're true friends. They must've just lost your number shorty after you lost your meal plan. It's nice to have constant texts of people wanting to meet you for every meal of the day, even if there are ulterior motives.
For those mornings when all you needed was some bacon grease and five bagels, you didn't have to go far. All you can eat breakfast bars were right around the corner with no planning necessary. Just pop in, stuff your face, and go back to bed. You didn't have to work for it. And chances are you'll have someone to go with because no one can resist free, all you can eat breakfast.
Going to the dining hall meant endless choices and decisions. Whether you chose to utilize it or not, there was always the salad bar. And also pizza, burgers, pasta, and sandwiches. Your choice. You didn't have to know what you were going to eat until you got there, and then all you had to do was ask. And if you opened up your refrigerator later, it was probably stocked with food taken from a dining hall. You don't realize how much food you need until you start using real money to buy it.
The convenience of having a meal plan is definitely missed the most. Wherever you were on campus, there was probably food in the building or right down the street. You could eat anything you wanted and you didn't starve just because you don't know how to cook. Weekly trips to the grocery store make you feel far too much like an adult and bring back the nostalgia of the simple life of dining halls and meal plans.
