Nothing is quite as rewarding as preparing your own food. The hard work of cooking is far more satisfying than getting food from a restaurant or a dining hall. When you cook you give your food a unique spin that matches your own tastes and preferences. Unfortunately only a few Blackburn students, residents of Stoddard and Jewell, are given the opportunity to cook their own food.
As Jewell is a freshman dorm the only chance for upperclassmen to prepare their own food is to live in Stoddard. This is unfair, as all students should have the opportunity to prepare their own food. There should be kitchens in every dorm on campus.
There are many reasons why Blackburn should provide kitchens to the entire student body. For one, the dietary preferences of students are not all the same. Students should be free to comfortably make the choice to be vegetarian or vegan. While the college does provide options in the dining hall and snackbar for these groups, eventually people get tired of salad and hummus. This is why these students should be given the opportunity to cook their own food with their own preferences. Students may also want to make healthy choices for their meals. This can be very difficult when the food is prepared by someone else. And what about those students that have extremely busy schedules? The dining hall and snackbar have limited hours as do many of the restaurants in town. Giving students the option to prepare their own food that fits their schedule would be hugely beneficial. In her article on washingtonpost.com titled “why college students should ditch the dining plan and learn to cook,” Kristen Hartke explained how her own daughter in college managed to cook with her busy schedule. “For my daughter, a theater arts major whose irregular rehearsal schedule does not always mesh with dining hall hours, moving into a campus apartment with a kitchen after freshman year offered her a chance to eat on her own time,” said Hartke. This could be true at Blackburn if kitchens were installed in all the residence halls.
Having kitchens on campus may also make living on campus more attractive. Incoming students may be more likely to want to live on campus because they have the opportunity to cook. Since students are unable to have many electrical appliances in their rooms (hotplates, microwaves and toasters) giving them access to these appliances in a controlled environment may make them reconsider attending another institution. Students would still need to be responsible with these facilities. Keeping the kitchens on campus neat and tidy would be absolutely essential for keeping them open and operational. There is no doubt that building and maintaining the kitchens on campus would be expensive. But if students can respect the privilege of kitchens on campus then Blackburn should provide them.