1. Graduation gifts – Luckily when you graduate, people give you gifts and money and things that you need. Even though these gifts are like “Hey, you’re out of college now and you’re kinda on your own so here is some luggage,” they make transitioning very happy.

2. I’m cafeteria free – Albeit eating in a dining hall and having a meal plan is convenient, not having to eat food made for 800 people is a dream. Do you know how amazing it is to eat food that is warm and flavorful? Maybe my alma mater wasn’t too fabulous in the food department (minus the Swedish meatballs … I lived for those), so I’m alone on this one, but I’ll take making myself food any day over dining hall slop.

3. I can wear my underwear whenever I want – Seriously, every time I would just want to veg out in my dorm room and just comfortably enjoy being in my underwear (with a bag of chips), someone would knock. (Editor’s Note: Thank god they didn’t just walk in. Awkward!) And you know, then you have to get up, put on pants, and open the door. Not now. I can wear my underwear all day and no one bothers me. Hooray!

4. No drama – Getting away from college has been a blessing. No gossip. No drama. Just memories and keeping-in-touch with those I want to (and staying far, far away from those I don’t).  I don’t have to deal with classroom politics, and I don’t have to deal with drunken sorority girls elbowing me on dance floors. It’s great being able to step back from the stuff that made me go “Ughh, I’m so over it.”

5. I have a degree– Even though it may not be enough to find the kind of job I want, I’m glad I have my Bachelors and I’m glad I worked my ass off to get it. College went fast, but the knowledge and the subjects that interest me will last a lifetime. No complaints there!

6. A Change of Scenery – Moving to California has taken me completely out of my element. I spent four years in Virginia, surrounded by mountains. Growing up, I lived in the suburbs of Atlanta. And now, I’m three minutes from the beach, 30 minutes to Los Angeles, 90 minutes to San Diego, and the majority of the weather is in the 70s. And it. is. glorious.

7. My own schedule – Nothing is better than sleeping in on a Wednesday just because I felt like it. I didn’t have the pleasure of doing that in college, so even though some people may think this qualifies me as a slacker, I love it. I can stay up late, sleep in late. I can nap when I want. I study for the LSAT and get what I need done, and I do so on my own schedule. Sometimes being jobless is amazing!

8. I do what I want – It’s as simple as that. I don’t have professor meetings to attend. I don’t have extra-curriculars to worry about. I don’t have some set schedule every day of the week. I can wake up when I want. I can go to bed when I want. I can do what I want. I can plan the future that I want. I have one person to really focus on and that’s myself. And it’s great.

What do you love about being a post-grad?

Compared with the grind of the working world, college is a pretty cushy experience.  Still, not everything on campus is as rosy as the tour guides would have you believe.  Despite its many opportunities, student life is fraught with frustrating rules and limitations.  If you like cereal for dinner and long hikes to class in the rain, you might be the perfect candidate for college living.  If, on the other hand, you need your creature comforts in order to stay sane, you’ll want to be forewarned about the following:

[Click on any image to view the gallery.]

[Meet Margaret, a freshman at Yale. We've been checking in with her every week to see what she's doing, who she's meeting, and what new college surprises she's tackling (or freaking out about) as she embarks on the journey we call college. Or as I like to call it, the best thing since dark chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter cups.]

At my old high school, we were never served veggie burgers, nor did we have to choose between vegan and non-vegan options in the cafeteria. I’m from Cincinnati, a city that boasts about its chili (which is really just a runny sauce on top of noodles…). Needless to say, the infinitesimal number of students who identified with vegetarianism at my school only did so for religious reasons. And some of them cheated.

Keeping that in mind, entering the dining hall at my college was like entering the land of some kind of lotus-eating, vegetarian haven, or, in my case, a carnivore’s personal version of hell. It’s not that they don’t serve meat; they do. But they also serve various other reinterpretations of meat: tofu ravioli, lentil hamburgers, vegan minestrone soup.

Upon seeing these, I became bitter and questioned why tofu ravioli was necessary when ravioli is obviously meant to be stuffed with beef and cheese (at least according to my man, Chef Boyardee). Didn’t all the vegetarians here realize what they were missing out on? Chicken tenders and steak? Bacon and sausage links? What was the point of all this? It’s not like one vegetarian will directly save the life of a cow or singlehandedly better animal welfare. Vegetarianism is pointless.

At least that’s what I’d always thought. But much like my drinking habits, my study habits and my feelings towards sex, being in college has made me re-think the way I eat.

By being thrown into a new environment where I’m exposed to new people, new ideals and a whole lot of  vegetarians, I’ve been forced time and again to re-evaluate what I’ve always known. And most recently, I’ve begun to reconsider the food that I put into my mouth. Whereas before I used to think that vegetarianism was a black and white issue – you either eat meat because it’s tasty or you don’t because you think cows are cute – I’ve learned that it’s so much more.

It’s a fact that Americans didn’t used to eat as much meat as we do today. Really, if you think about it (or Google it, like I’ve been doing constantly lately), the amount of meat we consume today really isn’t natural. And medical reports don’t lie; meat can definitely up your cholesterol and is one of the main contributing factors to our high rate of heart disease in this country.

Now, I’m not sure if I could go completely meatless (I like chicken tenders too much), but I’m definitely cutting back. And in the end, that’s not even the point. While this specific change is about tofu and lettuce, it is only one of many changes I’ve noticed since I got to Yale a mere month ago. Yes, I’m still staying true to who I am as a person, but the naive, sheltered Cincinnati girl I was before coming here is almost unrecognizable. With every new experience I have, class I take, reading assignment I complete and person I talk to, I’m learning more than I ever have before.

And I’m becoming a much more tolerant and open-minded person because of it.
I’m even eating (and enjoying!) tofu ravioli, and those are words I never in a million years thought would come out of my bacon-loving mouth.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about this week!

* I have a new idea. I think I may drink my way to success. Who’s with me?

* Between sipping coffee and fiercely typing on my laptop, I think I might have reserved enough energy to watch the infamous dysfunctional episode of this week’s Jersey Shore. I’m dying to know, has Sammi Sweetheart called for a WWIII with Ron Ron yet?

* Besides my riveting lifestyle, everyone else is going back to college!  It’s time for you to live it up, drink it down and please remember: appreciate all and everything college has to offer.

* Speaking of college and appreciating everything, I plead to alter my previous statement.  Ok, appreciate everything besides these dining hall food traps.

* Looking for a back-to-school pick-me-up (i.e. some quality bookmark material)? Check out  these websites every college kid should consider visiting.

* For some, it’s time to move back into the (super-social) dorm life.  These are the people you can look forward to running into.

* But if you want to date a few of them, keep one thing in mind: stop. being. crazy.

* Money is tight in college. Real tight. We found another way to keep you afloat during the hard times.

And with that, I’m out. Homegirl needs a venti. Stat.

This post provided by college nutritionist, author, and all around excellent source of healthful info, Melanie Jatsek.

Campus dining halls are amazing places.  Besides a Las Vegas buffet, where else can you find Chinese food, Mexican food, and a pasta, deli, salad and dessert bar all in one room?  They are amazing, but amazing doesn’t always equal good for you.  Sometimes it can be down right challenging to navigate through the lines and find something that isn’t fried or covered in some sort of sauce.  To make it easy for you, here are the top 5 dining hall food traps to watch out for. Some may surprise you!

Wraps or Burritos:

You’re probably wondering why.  Most tortillas used to make wraps and burritos contain trans fats (trans fatty acids), which are even worse for you than saturated fats!  The scary thing about them is, they make their way into your brain and disrupt communication between your brain cells.  It’s sort of like when you use your cell phone to call your friend’s cell phone and the two of you keep dropping the call – you can’t seem to make a connection!  The only way to tell for sure if a tortilla contains trans fats is by looking at the nutrition facts label on the package for the words “partially hydrogenated oils.”  Obviously you can’t do this in your dining hall, so you may want to ask the food service staff to take a peak for you.

Breaded Foods:

Breaded usually means fried and fried always means fatty and higher calorie!  Check this out- a chicken sandwich made with grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise has 420 calories and 10 grams of fat.  The same sandwich made with breaded (otherwise known as “crispy”) chicken has 530 calories and 20 grams of fat!

I know what you’re thinking…”but crispy taste so much better!”  It all depends on how you are used to eating.  If you always choose breaded and fried foods, they probably do taste better to you than the un-breaded and baked ones.  If your goal is to make some changes towards a healthier lifestyle in college, you might want to consider giving the un-breaded option a shot!  Your taste buds will quickly learn to prefer it over time.

Watch out for specific menu terms that translate into “fried”:  crispy, deep fried, battered and breaded.  Choose more:  baked, braised, broiled, grilled, poached, roasted, steamed and stir-fried.

The Salad Bar:

This can be your best friend or worst enemy.  Creamy dressings, cheeses, croutons, bacon bits, pasta salads with chunks of pepperoni and gelatins mixed with whipped cream are just a few of the salad bar options that can spell disaster for even the most well-intentioned salad.  The final “masterpiece” could easily add up to 800 calories or more!

Choose romaine lettuce or spinach and top it with beans, a sprinkle of cheese, hard-boiled egg, fresh fruit, tuna fish or baked chicken, tomatoes, broccoli, carrots, and an oil-based salad dressing like balsamic vinaigrette or Italian.  Oil-based dressings spread easier than creamy dressing, so you won’t use as much.

Gravies and Sauces:

Some sauces aren’t so bad, like marinara sauce or a small amount of garlic and olive oil, but then there are the “nightmare” sauces.  You know the ones – creamy, cheesy sauces that seem to harden your arteries just at the sight of them.  Some other sauces, like soy sauce and teriyaki sauce are very high in sodium-1000 mg for 1 tablespoon of soy sauce (that’s about 40% of your sodium limit for the entire day!).

So what should you do?  Go naked if you can!  Try getting in the habit of ordering or preparing food without salty sauces or seasonings.  For foods that you are supposed to order with sauce, like spaghetti, always opt for “red” versus “white” and shave up to 160 calories and 23 grams of fat off of your meal!

“Super-size” Portions:

Your stomach on “empty” is the size of your fist.  However, it can stretch to hold 128 ounces.  That’s a gallon!  No one needs that much food at one sitting.  Unfortunately, serving sizes seems to be growing at a ridiculous rate!  Did you know that a portion size for a bagel is 1 ounce?  That’s the size of a hockey puck and is about half of a medium bagel.  Those monstrous bagels at Panera Bread are actually 4 servings in one!

The good news is if you know what a standard serving size looks like, it will be much easier to spot “super-size” portions.  The following chart will help you make sense out of portions.

A serving of:

Cooked pasta, rice, or hot cereal = ½ cup- the size of a tennis ball
Dry cereal, fruits and vegetables = 1 cup- the size of a baseball
Pancakes, waffles = 1 ounce- the size of a CD
Beef, chicken or fish = 3 ounces- the size of an iPhone
Baked potato = size of a computer mouse
Cheese = 1 ounce- the size of 4 stacked dice
Ice cream = ½ cup- the size of a tennis ball

Yes, I know…a ½ cup of pasta is a ridiculously small amount!  You can certainly have more if you want to, just know that if you fill your entire plate with pasta at lunch, you are probably about to eat 4 or 5 servings.  That’s ok- just choose a higher protein meal at dinner and take it easy on the carbs!  It’s all about balance.

Only you can make your dining hall a healthier place to eat.  The greasy, fried, gravy-covered foods will still be there (and plentiful), but you have the freedom to “just say no” and opt for the un-breaded, greener, “naked” and portion-controlled ones.  You can do this!

[Melanie Jatsek is a speaker, author and registered dietitian who teaches college students how to eat to look better, feel better, think better and stress less!  Send her an email at melanie@melaniejatsek.com or connect with her on her new Facebook page for college students: “The Healthy Campus Project”]

Library to yourself? Score.

Endless exams and papers, constant guy drama, grad school applications, a dwindling bank account…the day-to-day worries of our college years often weigh us down.  But too often, we stress about the big issues and totally forget about the little things that make our daily routines bearable…or even great!

1. A Cancelled Class
Your alarm goes off bright and early at 8 a.m. and you can barely open your eyes.  You angrily hit the snooze button, roll over in bed and start thinking about what to wear.  Then your mind runs through all the things you have to do today: 3 classes, gym, library, chapter meeting…ugh. You’d rather stay in bed. Then – BUZZ! – your phone vibrates and you wonder who the hell needs to talk to you this early. Lo and behold, it’s your study buddy letting you know that (gasp) CLASS IS CANCELLED! Your professor is sick/at a family function/whatever, and you can barely read the whole text before you reset your alarm, pull the covers back over your head and sleep for a few more (glorious!) hours.

2. Free Stuff!
Let’s face it, in this economy getting anything for free in college is right up there with Christmas and 21st birthdays. Free short stack day at IHOP, free condoms at Student Health, those Victoria’s Secret coupons for free panties that come in the mail, and (a personal favorite at my campus) free iced coffee day at Dunkin Donuts.  And then there’s all those campus club meetings and fundraisers where they give out free food, and sometimes on hot days, free water bottles! It may not seem like much, but it doesn’t get much better than a free, ice cold water bottle.

3. Dining Hall Specials
After a long and stressful day most people want to indulge in a quality meal, and well, that usually doesn’t happen at the d-hall.  But sometimes you’ll walk in to discover that they ARE offering something completely delish and suddenly the whole day gets better. At my school we have something called “Premium Dessert Night,” where we got to follow up our meager bowl of salad or mystery meat with a stunning array of desserts prepared by special chefs! Oreo cheesecake, tartufo ice cream….mmm! There was also one guy (Will) that made the most bangin’ omelets on Saturdays and Sundays.  These were the only two things that made me actually want to head to the dining hall rather than stay in my 2×4 excuse for a room eating peanut butter out of the jar.

4. Prime Spots at the Library
An open table near an outlet with 3 open seats for your friends? And it just so happens to be behind a giant wall of books that hide your snacking from the evil library staff?  Heaven.

5. No Wait Time for Laundry!
We head to the laundry room about once a week whenever we run out of underwear and usually find all the washers and dryers already in use.  Or the dryers have been off for 2 hours but no one has come down to claim their clothes and you’re forced to pull out some guys tighty-whiteys so you can put your stuff in. The college laundry experience is annoying at best, dangerous and violent at worst (my freshman year roommate has gotten in some serious altercations over moving someone else’s clothes!). But sometimes, (usually on a weekend morning when everyone else is hungover), you’ll enter the laundry room to find the machines available! And maybe, if you’re REALLY lucky, the machine will have a glitch and wash your stuff without eating your $2 worth of quarters.

6. Random Acts of Kindness
There’s nothing like waking up to find that my roommate has already brewed coffee and left extra for me.  Or coming home to a plate of freshly baked cookies. Having people compliment your outfit on the way to class, your roomie with the killer wardrobe letting you borrow her favorite dress, or finding out that the girl you sit next to in English signed you in on the attendance sheet that morning you were too hungover tired to make it to class.

It’s easy to get bogged down with all the BS that comes with college life, but there’s so much to appreciate! So appreciate it! Make sure to recognize the small victories that come your way and take advantage of ‘em. From what I hear, things only get worse in the real world… and the free stuff isn’t nearly as abundant.

Week after week (after week after week…), CollegeCandy and our pal John bring you some of the weirdest, funniest, and saddest things he hears on his college campus. And we know he’s not the only one who hears this stuff. Join the Overheard revolution! Listen in on some weirdos’ conversations and share them in the comments or send ‘em over. You know there’s a lot of funny things to be heard on your campus, so get listening.

(Guy, watching something in a sports bar.)

Guy: Okay … yeah, okay … ALL RIGHT! YES! I’m the BUTTERMAN! I’m the SEXY BUTTERMAN!

(Two girls, studying in the library.)

Girl 1: Yeah, I’ll probably start sleeping here too. Under the tables or something.

Girl 2: No, I said “sleeping with girls” in the library. That’s different.

Girl 1: Oh. Yeah, I guess it is.

(Girl, in a movie theater lobby.)

Girl: Yeah, what was up with those? The shak-ti people of the dunelands. The mol-kot people of the high cliffs. The lint people of lint-land. The butt people of my butthole.

(Guy, drops his food in the dining hall.)

Guy: Aww, bigc**k bearsf**k.

(Girl, on the phone in the library cafe.)

Girl: Wait … a cactus? Geez. Wow. Hard times. … Yeah, I guess it is cheaper than seeing a Proctologist.

(Professor, during the last lecture of the semester.)

Prof: Honestly, being a straight woman is really overrated. I’d say “eat it, straight girls,” except you can’t.

(Girl, singing softly as she unpacks her stuff in the library.)

Girl: One, two, three, I got finals and me, calc and chemistry and I’m caught in between.

(Guy, entering a dorm lounge.)

Guy: Oh my god. That interview.

Guy 2: How was it?

Guy: You know how, when you get nervous, you feel like your stomach is full of butterflies? Mine felt like it was getting ripped out through my anus.

(Two girls, next to the fruit section in the dining hall.)

Girl 1: You think we need a trash bag?

Girl 2: Yeah, I’ll get one.

Employee: Excuse me. You can’t take those.

Girl 1: We can’t?

Girl 2: Yeah we can.

Employee: No, you can’t.

Girls: (leave)

"Wait... that's CHICKEN?"

You’ve finished your three classes for the day, you spent an hour catching up on reading in the library and you sweat through 45 minutes on the elliptical. Now its 6:00 and you’re starving.  You know you should shower, but with only 30 minutes until the cafeteria closes, you throw on some dry sweats, grab some hall mates and run down to dinner.

You swipe your meal card, grab a tray and make your way down the line of dinner options. Your stomach growls as the smell of hot food wafts towards you. You’re so hungry you’ll eat anything. Or so you think.

As you make your way down the first row of food you grow nauseous. The platters are full of something brown and sloppy.

“Is that beef?” You think to yourself as you lean in to get a closer look. You read the card taped to the glass above it.

“BBQ chicken” it says.

There is no way in hell you’re going to eat anything that unrecognizable so you move on. Next there are soggy vegetables soaked in oil, something yellow and runny that the hair-net-wearing burly man (or maybe woman?) tells you are mashed potatoes and a vegetarian option that you swear you saw in the toilet after you drank too much on Sunday…

Unable to stomach any of the above you weigh your other options. You could go with the salad bar – again – but you know a plate full of vegetables is not going to do much for your empty stomach. Plus, isn’t lettuce supposed to be green?

Your stomach starts rumbling again and, running out of time, you decide to go with the only appetizing option left in the entire cafeteria: the Belgian waffle maker. You know it’s not healthy, but what else are you supposed to do – not eat? You promise yourself you’ll grab some fruit to go with it and get in line behind the other 8 people who couldn’t stomach the hot food.

After one failed attempt involving a little too much batter that spilled over the sides and dripped onto your furry slippers (“WTF? Why do they make the ladle so big?!”) you pull your perfectly browned waffle out of the iron (burning your fingers in the process), pour a little syrup on it and head over to your friends. Only on your way to the table where the girls are unhappily chomping away on plates of salad you spot the dessert bar. It’s filled with brownies and mini cups of banana pudding (with wafers!), all making you drool. Next to it, a student fills a bowl with rich, creamy frozen yogurt before drowning the dish in sprinkles and whipped cream.

You try to fight it (“Who eats dessert before 7pm!?”) but your stomach eventually makes the decision for you and you stop, put your tray down and grab a bowl. You feel a little guilty as you layer brownies and ice cream and sprinkles, but you remind yourself of your good workout and how you wouldn’t be doing this if the main courses didn’t look like dog poo. Then you take your waffle, apple and bowl of creamy goodness and sit down with your friends to dig into your “dinner.”

On your way out, you grab another brownie (and an apple) for later. “It’s not like this meal is gonna fill me up until bedtime,” you reason.

Yeah, we’ve all been there.
And now we know exactly where that Freshman 15 comes from.

Stay away. Stay far, far away.

Making your way through the landmine that is the world of college dating is tricky. You have to make sure to bypass the clingy, the crazy and the man-whores before you can settle down in a safe zone. But just like my favorite computer procrastination game, Minesweeper, there are red flags that you have to pay heed to, lest you detonate a mine, or a relationship gone sour.

Red Flag #5: His idea of a date is using a meal swipe on you at the dining hall. I see a long line of Denny’s dates in your future.

Red Flag #4: You finally get invited to spend the night in his dorm room. But upon arriving you notice his collection of navel fluff in jars lining his book shelves. If the guy is collecting his own belly button lint, chances are you were going to wake up later that night and find him finger-diving for yours.

Red Flag #3: The only time he ever calls you is to ask if you’ve filled your Adderall prescription. Your doctor-diagnosed disease has turned you into his and his friends personal drug-dealer come exam time. You have to ask yourself, does he love you or your ADD?

Red Flag #2: We all want our roommates to like our boyfriends. It makes it easier to sexile them come the weekend. But if you find him spending more time with her than with you, don’t ignore this red flag. Unless you’re interested in a threesome, don’t be surprised if you wake up and he’s spooning your roomie instead of you.

Red Flag #1: You read him the following FMyLife: “Today, my boyfriend told me he always thought the female orgasm was an urban legend. FML” And his response was, “Wait, it’s not?”

As Liz Lemon would say… That’s a deal breaker!

"Oh god. I gotta go, guys. Like, really go. #2."

That’s where College Candy comes in. We’re not going to debate whether or not the Theory of Relativity actually exists (a disappointment, I know, but I’m a communications major and stopped taking science classes after Baby Bio fresh year). However, we are here to thoroughly investigate the most widespread college knowledge (no, not rhyming)—the myth.

If you go to college, chances are you’ve eaten at a dining hall. You’ve experienced gourmet menu items such as “liquid mashed potatoes,” “Sahara-dry chicken” and “green jell-o with mysteriously hard parts around the edges.” And as delightful as your dining experience was, chances are you felt the results of that extra serving of corn a short time later as you were flooring it for the communal bathroom. And if you were just lucky enough to have a meal-plan (like I was my freshman year), you got to experience the joy of this routine three times a day. Every day. For a year.

I remember wondering what the hell was wrong with me; I’d never spent so much money on toilet paper and air freshener before in my life. Did college trigger an internal mechanism that doomed me to poop all the time for the rest of my life? “No,” my roommate said, “The dining halls put baby laxatives in the food, duh.”

“OMG, why would they do that to us?!” I demanded of her.

“Because that way people get hungrier faster after they eat and go back for more; it helps the school make more money.”

Or they do it so if a student gets food poisoning, the toxic waste (pun completely intended) will get out of their system faster. Or so that the students don’t get fat and give the school a bad reputation (because weight is obvi a huge indication of the quality of a school’s prestige and all.) Or because the empathetic food service people know how test stress and homesickness can constipate the youngin’s and they just wanna help things along. All of these reasons are the usual suspects for the explanation of this rumor…and they are all totally whack.

First of all, despite what you may think after tasting dorm food, there are health and safety standards (pretty rigorous ones, considering the widespread university distaste for lawsuits), so the idea of adding an un-prescribed medication to the masses is kinda ridiculous. Any medication, even OTC, has some kind of side effects. Imagine if a student had an allergic reaction, or died, as a result of these non-existent laxatives; yea, it would be the university’s turn to sh** themselves.

Also, even if the dining hall food did give someone food poisoning (I’m sure it’s happened), a laxative wouldn’t prevent the toxins from being absorbed by your body on the way out, no matter how fast it’s moving. There is absolutely no feasible reason for any university, anywhere, to allow its dining halls to slip a lil Ex-lax into the meat on Taco Tuesday. Consider this myth officially debunked.

What are some of the urban legends you hear around your campus? Share them in the comments section below. Our scientific team of experts (me, Google, and sometimes my best friend) is always looking for new myths to dispel!