Picture this: you’re six weeks into your first term and you can’t bear the thought of eating pizza for the third time this week.
On a trip to pick up some ramen, you pass the basic ingredients to make spaghetti.
“Leave it all to me,” from “iCarly,” plays in your head and a bout of nostalgia floods your senses. Without hesitation, you gather your ingredients and rush to your dorm. You check out the necessary appliances from the front desk. Pots, pasta sauce and a dream in hand, you enter the dorm kitchen, and it’s at this moment you realize you’ve never cooked a meal by yourself before.
You cautiously start cooking and just when you think you’ve gotten the hang of it, a puff of smoke from actively burning meatballs sets off the fire alarm. The entire building evacuates from the alarm, leaving your dinner, and your pride, behind in the kitchen. Late nights on cable TV led to the assumption that college life was simple, chic and well… not this dirty.
In season 1, episode 5 of “Winx Club,” the main characters are tasked with kitchen duty which they are quickly relieved of after failing to flip omelettes, if only giving up was that easy. In season 2 episode 23 of “iCarly,” fun creations like spaghetti tacos made cooking look effortless. And in season 1 episode 9 of “Felicity,” a Thanksgiving spread including a full-sized turkey, endless sides and candles is laid out on 3 tables in a dorm room.
The media portrayed in the childhoods of today’s college students made dorm life, and with it, dorm cooking, look perfect. But it’s not 2006 anymore, and no one is attending the Alfea College for Fairies from “Winx Club.” It’s 2026 and Oregon State University students are weighing in on their experiences with dorm cooking.
Zadie Tassi, a freshman marketing major living in Wilson Hall, said she enjoys that “the microwave is convenient but people won’t bring down the Eco2Go containers for weeks, they just pile them up in the kitchen or their dorms.”
Dirty Eco2Go containers were not something Gabriella Montez from High School Musical was dealing with in college.
Lian Daly, a sophomore geology major who lived in McNary Hall his freshman year, said that not all kitchens are rated equally.
“Me and my friends would go to his dorm for any cooking related stuff because they always had more appliances available,” said Daly. His friend lived in Buxton Hall. Meanwhile, appliances seem abundant at the Thanksgiving dinner from “Felicity.”
That said, some students enjoy having the communal kitchen. Olivia Bonnet, a freshman environmental engineering major living in Buxton Hall appreciates the kitchen.
“It’s the flexibility of the space, and the money saver it can be,” she said. She recommends to anyone nervous to enter the space to, “find a friend to scope out the area with.”
“These resources are extremely helpful to the people living in these dorms. It allows for both bonding and the ability to cook on a budget. It also teaches some people what responsibility is by understanding how to take care of a shared space,” said Presley Blackham, a freshman forestry major living in Wilson Hall.
“We made a lot of omelettes,” Alaina Visi remembers from freshman year. Visi is a junior interior design major who lived in Callahan Hall her freshman year.
Despite dorm life being in Visi’s past, the communal kitchen still makes appearances in her current day. “My RA friend had me over for Thanksgiving dinner, it really is a great space to bring communities together,” she said. Visi recommends freshmen to not be afraid to try something new in the kitchen and to “have fun doing it for yourself, you don’t always need a friend.”
