College Happenings

College Ramen, cheap, fast and easy, fairly palatable – at first – with a few additions, but perhaps it’s not the best nutritional choice for a steady diet. It’s high in sodium and often has a lot of MSG. Fortunately, there are lots of other simple and affordable options.

Rice and Beans:
Chop an onion, a little garlic, some olives, favorite spices, sauté in oil for a few minutes in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Add two cups rice, a 16-ounce can of cooked beans, drained and rinsed, or the equivalent amount of cooked dry beans, sauté a few minutes. Add 3 cups of water and bring to boil. Cover tightly, reduce heat, cook 35 to 40 minutes. Inexpensive, taste and reheats perfectly in the microwave. Fry up a couple plantains (banana family), heat up some spinach or other deep green vegetables and you have a cheap, well-balanced meal.

Pasta:
Pasta doesn’t have to be dull, there are countless fast and easy ways to make a great meal. Seasonal vegetables, like summer squash, broccoli, eggplant, sautéed in oil and butter with a bit of garlic, onion, and a few spices, served on pasta with olive oil or butter and sprinkled with Parmesan or Romano makes a great fast and healthy meal.

You can eat fast, affordably and well in college, even if you have to do one pot meals on a smuggled in hotplate. A little food research goes a long way.

While we don’t recommend drugs at all, obviously, experimenting smartly can make the difference in how well you come through the experience. Use your brain; make smart choices.

Drugs in powder form can easily be adulterated. The average drug dealer is not about the experience the substance will provide, but the profit it will generate. Powdered drugs, such as cocaine or heroin, may contain other substances that can poison you, even kill you. Are you ready to bet your life on the integrity of the person looking to make a profit great enough to justify his business risks?

Many of the designer pills, Ecstasy, etc., are from powders that are compressed or put into capsules by the sellers. Thus, these too can still be adulterated. The same goes for the type of drugs that come from liquids, with doses absorbed into paper, like LSD. You don’t know what’s in it or how much is there. Kind of hard to make a smart choice of how much to take or if it is safe to take in such circumstances.

Make informed choices. Consider adulteration possibilities. Read up and learn about how much is too much. Know what to do if an emergency should arise. If you must experiment, try to choose the safest options and be in a safe place.

We’ve probably all had the experience of a professor with a distinct political outlook or other strong opinions and beliefs. And, while your work is supposed to be judged on its merit, in terms of displaying a mastery of methods, materials and concepts, the fact is that that’s not always the case. Sometimes a dilemma presents itself – write with integrity, according to your understanding and beliefs, or write for the grade, slanting your paper or essay towards the position the professor is most likely to be supportive of.

It would be nice to say that intellectual integrity should always reign, but on a practical scale, that may not always be possible. Sometimes, you need the grade. Decisions like this need to be made on a case-by-case basis. But, it’s also important to make choices you can live with. If you have to take a controversial position, one that runs completely counter to that of the person who will be grading your work, make sure that your presentation is as flawless as possible. That way, you increase the chance of being judged solely on the academic merit of your work.