We might not be UMass Amherst with the best dining halls in America, but here at WPI we are proud of our tater tots. Since there are so few options here, a plan of action is absolutely vital to surviving a week of on-campus eating. What follows are a few methods for where and when to find the best food on campus. Good eating.

1. Dine and Dash

Sometimes it’s less about the quality and more about the location. Using On-The-Go or Daka to Go, you can get mediocre food for maximum efficiency.

2. DAKA Challenge

Get the most for your swipe. Go for the breakfast. Stay for the s’mores hot chocolate. Never leave. Maybe get some work done, but at least the people watching will be accompanied by a sometimes quirky and always unique musical soundtrack.

3. Goats Head, dessert edition.

The food at Goats Head gets old real fast when you live in close proximity to it. Thankfully, the desserts make the bland food almost worthwhile. Brownie sundaes. Ice cream sandwiches. Here we have a light at the end of a dark tunnel filled with sub-par daka cookies and half-cooked rice.

4. The Campus Center: Alluring But, Ultimately, Worthless

I had high hopes that the cc would bring the pain of daka’s revolving variations on the same meals to a fortunate close. How wrong I was. Sure, a bowl is still worthwhile, but everything else is simply meh. Unless it’s a rare day when the chef’s table is offering a good meal. Trying to follow the rigmarole of what can and can’t be included on a swipe makes the cc needlessly complicated and, ultimately, too tiresome to try and mix up what I get.

5. Dunks, need anything else be said?

When you have dunks, nothing else matters quite so much anymore. Stress, exams, papers, they all blow away like your napkins in the wind. Bless this place.

6. The microwave.

When I’m cold and at my most desperate, I crack open a jar of soup and make myself some nice tomato soup with oyster crackers as the garnish on top. Bliss in a bowl. Don’t scoff until you try it.

Well, there you have it. The very limited options to surviving on campus. If you’re lucky, escape the system now. Break free of the chains of a meal plan. Get an oven. Love it. Treasure it. Or, become friends with someone who has one.