Dining Halls – an essential part of most freshmen’s day-to-day lives. The three halls on campus are Everybody’s Kitchen (EVK), Parkside, and Café 84 differ in the kinds of food they serve: EVK’s food leans toward 
comfort food, whereas Parkside incorporates international flavors and is more allergen-conscious, and Café 84 has a variety of more health-conscious options. Each is located on different corners of campus. Each dining hall changes up its menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day, but at times, you’ll find yourself at the same dining hall with the same salad-and-soup combination for the sixth meal in a row.
You can check the menus of each dining hall online each day on the USC Hospitality website, or you can download and use the USC Eats Application; both have the full menu of each dining hall for breakfast, lunch, and dinner available. If you’re going to the same dining hall for every meal because one is closer and you don’t want to take the risk of not being able to find food you’ll enjoy after a long walk over to another dining location, these two options can allow you to plan ahead to see if it is worth making the trek over to a further dining hall.
Omelette stations are a staple at every dining hall for breakfast, but instead of getting the same omelette each morning, you can ask the chef for fried or scrambled eggs. They aren’t listed on the options at the station, but chefs are always willing to cook them however you like. You could also ask for them to cook the omelette vegetables without an egg, or to cook them scrambled into eggs. You can even ask for just egg whites – endless variations are available.
The microwaves that some dining halls have provide more room to get creative; I’ve seen one of my friends make cinnamon apples in one at Parkside. Aside from using them to reheat the food that gets cold over conversation, you can use it to melt cheese, and warm up deserts (and then add ice cream on top).
With these of little-known hacks, you’ll be able to easily prevent falling into the rut of repetitive meals!
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