If I were to pen a graduate student survival guide, the first chapter would undoubtedly cover methods for scoring free food. I view this process as the central nonacademic challenge for the struggling student, perhaps second only to placating the libido. If you doubt this, try dealing with a cranky adviser on an empty stomach. You’ll have visions of biting off the crabby sage’s head to both silence him or her and satisfy your hunger.
Before I lay out a plan for successfully scouring the campus for free food, allow me to state a few guiding principles. First, graduate students should act without pride. Neophyte hunters and gatherers often feel ashamed of the lengths to which they go to find a free meal. While this is to be expected, seasoned veterans will vouch that shameful feelings soon give way to the exhilaration and self-efficacy that come from stringing together consecutive days during which not a penny was spent to fill their tummies.
Second, take as much as possible. A premium is put on gluttony in this practice. Think about it in pragmatic terms: free food opportunities ebb and flow, so you always need to take as much as you can today to deal with tomorrow’s dearth. Finally, communication among graduate students is key. They need to efficiently spread the word across the campus as free food opportunities arise.
Equipped with these basic tenets of the feeding frenzy, I can now lay out one approach for success. It begins with the premise that this university is a preeminent research institution and like other intellectual hubs, outsiders from every discipline come here nearly every day to give speeches, lectures and presentations. These events are fertile ground for feeding frenzies. One can usually expect to find a full spread and maybe some alcohol before and/or after research presentations. Savvy hunters and gatherers will note the likelihood of free food is an increasing function of speakers’ prestige. To gauge the celebrity status of academics outside one’s field, you must rely on “moles” within other departments. But I suggest the pride-swallowing method of simply phoning an administrative assistant to find out whether food will be served at upcoming presentations.
Two other sets of events are perfect for hungry hawks: departmental holiday parties and intermittent social hours. Here, you are almost guaranteed to find free food. Communication and a sense of reciprocity among students across various departments are crucial for this to succeed. Indeed, a coordinated and methodically run feeding operation can only occur when information flows well between graduate students.
You should keep a few things in mind while planning a feast at these banquets of barbarism. Always bring Tupperware. Keep it safely hidden from view until just before the event ends and when important people (especially your adviser) leave, load up as many Tupperwares as possible. This will ensure your pigs-in-a-blanket will be fresh for days to come. Do not be dissuaded by people giving you odd looks; they’re just jealous they didn’t think of the same thing. Something else to bear in mind is what I call the Paradox of Gluttony. The aim of each feeding frenzy should be to clean out your host, leaving nothing behind. Someone in the department will observe this and conclude not enough food was ordered. Guess what will happen? Next time around there will be even more food for you to demolish.
The Graduate Student Government should create a database of potential free food opportunities around and on the campus. To do so, it may rely on enterprising wolverines within each department to compile lists of upcoming events. Only then will graduate students become a well-oiled, free-feeding machine.
For too long has the call to the free food endeavor been scorned, and for too long has its practice remained subterranean. The time is now to bring these hungry trailblazers out of the shadows, and offer them honorable places at the free-feeding trough.
Chris Herbst is a doctoral student in public policy. He can be reached at cherbst@umd.edu.
