choatecolate

I heard the unlimited plans are definitly not worth it...i am a first year in webb tower (transfer student) so I can get an apartment plan instead of the regular frosh plans. are these better?

BandTenHut

You have a full kitchen. I would think a full freshman meal plan would be a waste of money. When I lived in Webb I had no meal plan and I liked it that way, but as a first year you might want to get an apartment plan.

'Better' depends on how much money you have to spend and how much you care about savings.

choatecolate

well i want to be able to grab dinner/lunch with friends and be social, but save money....

how did you buy food? i have no car and no intention to wander around the dangerous parts next to campus

4orce

If you want a meal plan, get one of the apartment ones because otherwise you won't be putting the full meal plan to use. There is a grocery store across the street in the UV, and Smart & Final and Ralphs on Vermont if you want to cook. There are no "dangerous" parts that you must wander to get food unless you're stumbling drunk alone at 3am. If you want to grab dinner/lunch with friends, chances are that one of them has a car, otherwise there is plenty of food on campus, in the UV and on Figueroa.

BandTenHut

If your goal is to eat socially and save money, you should avoid a meal plan, unless all your friends are freshmen. Usually only freshmen have a meal plan.

Since they added the Fresh and Easy there are now 4 groceries within walking distance of USC and there's nothing dangerous about going to any of them.

If you want to save money, look up a meal plan, and divide the cost by the number of meal swipes. That will tell you all you need to know.

27dreams

Yeah, the unlimited swipe plans are awful. Dining hall food is teh nasty compared to what's in the campus center and the Fresh and Easy Express. What does the apartment meal plan offer? Basically, dining dollars are awesome, and swipes are only awesome if most of your friends are freshmen. But seriously, if you want to eat healthy/not gain weight, get most of your food from Seeds, Lemonade, and Fresh and Easy. The first two are in the campus center and accept dining dollars but they also accept normal payment methods. The Fresh and Easy is located under Gateway apartments across the street from campus, on the nicer side. If you have the option of not having a meal plan, it might be better to just pay for your food as you go depending on what the apartment plan offers and how much you eat. Don't get any of the unlimited swipe plans if you're not required to. The food is better outside of the dining halls and you'll probably pay less on your own anyway. I'm going to be a sophomore in the fall living in an apartment that isn't USC owned, and I'm glad to not have to get a meal plan this time.

wisdomsomehow

It's easy to get affordable, quality groceries from Fresh & Easy, or you could try taking the Expo line to Trader Joe's (I believe one of the stops in Culver City is pretty close to the Culver City TJ's). Fresh & Easy does have a somewhat limited selection, but it's fine for my needs.

You can get affordable groceries from Superior in the UV, and while I've never heard of their groceries actually being of low quality, there's certainly a perception, and they're definitely not as organic/free range/whatever as the stuff you'll find at Fresh & Easy or Trader Joe's.

You can get quality groceries from Ralph's, but that's far from campus and expensive, compared to the three I mentioned above.