Self-catered with option for catered on certain days

I'm hopefully joining Exeter this September and would like to apply for a self-catered halls ideally (East Park/Lafrowda) but would like the option of catered for when I have zero time. I have heard from others that this can be an option and was wondering how you would go about applying for this or if this even exists

Original post by leoE55

I'm hopefully joining Exeter this September and would like to apply for a self-catered halls ideally (East Park/Lafrowda) but would like the option of catered for when I have zero time. I have heard from others that this can be an option and was wondering how you would go about applying for this or if this even exists

Isn't that what McDonalds is for?

Original post by leoE55

I'm hopefully joining Exeter this September and would like to apply for a self-catered halls ideally (East Park/Lafrowda) but would like the option of catered for when I have zero time. I have heard from others that this can be an option and was wondering how you would go about applying for this or if this even exists

Hi @leoE55! I was in East Park in my first year - good choice! Self-catered accommodation is a great option if you want to be flexible with your meals - both in terms of what you're eating and at what times - but there can definitely be times when it can feel like cooking just requires too much time and energy! This was definitely something I had to adjust to when I started at uni.

I hadn't previously heard of the option to occasionally eat in catered halls, but having looked on the accommodation website I can see that there is an option for students living in self-catered halls to purchase what is called a Meal Deal Package Card. This allows you to pre-pay for a set number of meals in catered accommodation. You pay for this card once term begins, so regarding your accommodation application, I would go ahead with applying for self-catered halls in the usual way if you have decided this is where you would like to live. If you have any further questions about the Meal Deal Package Card, I would recommend contacting the Accommodation Office directly - their email is [email protected].

However, drawing from my personal experience I would say that cooking for yourself is something that you become more used to as your first year goes on, and you learn to find strategies that save you time and energy. I learnt to be quite organised by pre-planning my meals at the start of the week, accounting for the days when I had very little time to cook by making sure that earlier on in the week I'd batch cooked a meal and saved it for the day when I was short on time. I would plan to do the batch cooking on days when I had more free time. Having this all planned out day-by-day in advance takes the mental energy out of deciding what to cook/eat on each day.
If regularly cooking for yourself is new for you (as it was for me), I would also recommend writing yourself a list of very easy and quick meals that you're really familiar with before coming to uni - for me that meant having 5 or 6 recipes that I'd practiced several times before September, so that making them was second nature by the time I got to uni. Hopefully having some strategies like this makes things a little easier!

Let me know if you have any further questions :smile:

Nina
University of Exeter Student Ambassador

Self-catered with option for catered on certain days

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