Karma

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"Culturally that's the way that we think:”

The Story of Karma

Demographics: White Female, PhD Student in Engineering

Tags: Engineering, PhD Student, Food Insecurity, Diabetes, Stress

ElevenLabs_Karma.mp3

My name is Karma. I have a huge family. My mom's one of seven, so I grew up with a ton of cousins and aunts and uncles who I remain close with. Always very close with my grandparents. I think generally I'm just a determined person. I'm very passionate about the things that I want to do. I was talking about this yesterday that I can't, like things a normal amount. My one friend, every time I start talking about things that I like, he just tells me that I have way too many hobbies. I am a streamer for fun on the side. I stream Pokémon Unite. I work now for a professional gaming organization. I'm an E-Sports caster and content creator for them. So that's been fun. I stream when I can, I run tournaments, I cast tournaments, I manage content and do series and make videos. It's a hobby, but I also make like a competitive aspect to it at the same time, so I'm doing this very seriously.

I love astrology and I can't just be like, "Yeah, I like astrology. I'm a Gemini." I have to, you know, I listen to podcasts and I read books and I do workbooks and I pay $60 a year for an app that tells me where the planets are and what's going to happen to me because of it. I really like true-crime. I have my true-crime podcasts that I listen to. I like to stay up to date and, you know, opportunities to be safe as well, just knowing what's going on in the world and things like that. I love anime. I have my whole list on my phone of all of the shows that I've watched and am watching and my list of shows that I want to watch. Me and my partner watch some together. I watch some by myself. And I love music. I competitively love music because I leave my Spotify running at all times so I can try to get the most amount of minutes possible by the end of the year. So I do that as well. I'm also a creative writer, so I do a lot of writing on the side just for fun. I don't know where I put all of these things, but somehow across the week I get all of them, I get all of them done. So if there is something I enjoy, I'm fully invested in it. That's what has brought me to engineering education and being so passionate about where I'm at now and what I want to do. I can't just want to be an engineer a normal amount. I have to wanna be in charge of everything and be the one that does the things and changes the world and figures out. I don't mean to, it just always ends up that I can't just do things in normal amounts.

I first came to Opportunity University as an undergrad in electrical and computer engineering. Went on to not like it so much. I didn't wanna be in the industry of electrical engineering, so I went on to do my master's in biomedical engineering and it’s there where I really fell in love with engineering education, so I wanted to pursue that as well. I'm now a PhD student in engineering education. I come from the area; I was born somewhere else, but I grew up around here. So I live fairly close to Opportunity University.

So I grew up not in poverty or anything like that, but we didn't grow up with money. I was always taught you don't waste food, you just can't. There's not enough money to waste food. My mom had a very idealistic approach to raising us where she wanted to be home and she wanted my dad to be the one that makes the money and she would be home raising the four of us. But my dad didn't have a high paying job, ever. And so we didn't really have much money. It wasn't until after my parents got divorced, I was 12, that my mom started working. I was home and I was in charge of a lot of food for my younger siblings. I have three younger siblings, the youngest is currently in high school and we are all very close. My youngest brother was four at the time. So I was home watching them and making sure everyone was eating enough food. I remember my mom always leaving me messages or whatever like, "Don't let them use all the milk because I get paid on Thursday and I can't get milk until then. So don't let them have too much milk in their cereal this morning" or things like that. Because of that, by the time I came to Opportunity University, I was very careful about what I ate, even though I had a meal plan and I was just taking loans out and everything. So I had a fine meal plan, but I was very careful about using it.

Even though I had 14 meals a week, I was very stingy about it at the same time. It wasn't until I was 20 and diagnosed with type one diabetes that the food insecurity part of it really started to come in. It wasn't as much of a money thing at that point because though I had grown up fairly poor, having to be really careful about food and, and things like that, I wasn't as worried about the money aspect anymore as I was worried about dying. I was so afraid of eating anything. I was also always very, very picky growing up. I really didn't like much. And because of, you know, also not having a ton of money, everything was kind of plain. Like there wasn't a ton going on with the food that we ate. So growing up, I only ate like, buttered pasta and chicken nuggets. I would only eat that, those things.

So then it wasn't until after I got diagnosed with type one diabetes where I was like, "Well, I can't just have chicken tenders from downstairs in the basement of the student center every single meal, because I'm going to die. They told me my blood sugar can't get that high and I have to save money and not use a lot of insulin." So I learned how to eat right. I learned how to eat more food and I stopped being as picky. There was a while there from, I got diagnosed in September of 2019, so there was a while. And then COVID hit a couple months later. We were all sent back home, where I was so afraid to eat anything that I really wasn't eating anything. So the food insecurity aspect kind of came from like the fear of being disabled as opposed to not having the money or the resources to eat.

First year having a meal plan, I didn't really have to worry too much. I was like, "I have loans, but that's a future problem." I always had food in my dorm. There was always food people were giving away somewhere. I didn't really have much trouble besides my own experiences being brought up kind of poor and being worried about wasting food or going to a party and worrying about not liking food because I was so picky. Sophomore year, same experience. I had a kitchen at that point so I could do a bit more. I still had a meal plan for when I wanted to eat on campus. And it wasn't difficult or anything. I didn't utilize any resources, but I didn't really have to either.

I started to get worried around junior year because I didn't have a heavy meal plan at that point. Um, so I just didn't eat for a while. Like, I would eat very low-carb so I didn't have to worry about giving myself insulin, which I didn't know was very dangerous for diabetics. When I started doing that, I did, I had no idea that, you know, like keto diet? It's like a fad diet, but it's super, super unhealthy and no one should really do keto, but it makes you lose a lot of weight because it just absorbs all the fat in your body and you just pee it out. And that's basically what I was doing without realizing it. And for diabetics, that's especially dangerous because if you produce ketones then you can go into ketoacidosis and get really sick. I had talked to the wellness center and nutritionists and things like that at the wellness center. So they were trying really hard to make sure that they provided me with resources, but I was just so afraid of everything. What the nutritionist would tell me are things that I would have to go buy myself, things that weren't necessarily available on campus, more healthy foods and things like that. I couldn't just go get fruit on campus. I would have to get off. I was driving at the time so I had my car and was still living on campus, but I had a townhouse, so we had a kitchen and things, so I would buy food. If I wanted to get the food that would be helpful for me, I would have to go buy it myself.

I couldn't understand why I was sick all the time because I thought as long as my blood sugar is low, like maintaining the straight line between 80 and 120, I'll be good. But I was very sick and I didn't want to eat anything. So that was mainly where the food insecurity came from. I had a lot of trouble, like, putting weight on. I was really, really small, 'cause when your blood sugar's really high and you start producing ketones and stuff, before diagnosis you will lose a lot of weight. So I was already losing a ton of weight. After diagnosis I just kept losing more weight because I wasn't eating anything.

The years when you're not really an adult yet, you don't really have to worry. The future isn't as prominent. So it's like, "Yeah, you know, I'll worry about this later. I have loans, but it's fine. Like I'll figure it out." Junior year, getting diagnosed is really what turned it around; that year and senior year. I was always like… I have one story my first year to go back to. First year, first semester I had classes from 8:00 AM to 6:15 PM straight through. I had no breaks, so I just didn't eat those days. I would just bring a bag of fruit snacks or something and I would just eat that during the day. I had no time.

My intro to digital systems' lab lecture was from 11:00am to 12:15pm and I immediately had the lab section after that from 12:30pm to 3:15pm. Then I immediately had a mechanics lab from 3:30pm to 6:15pm. Before that I had two lecture classes. It was the worst thing ever. So I think sometimes it was never that bad again, but sometimes I would have a bunch of classes in a row and there just wouldn't be time to eat. It didn't happen to that extent again. Junior year I would have three lectures in a row and it would be across lunchtime and things like that. And there was also the aspect of junior year and senior year, well not as much senior year 'cause most of it was virtual senior year, mostly junior year when all of my classes would be in the ECE labs, on the third floor. You're not allowed to eat there. We would have the whole lecture for three hours about safety and how you can’t eat anything. They would make me really uncomfortable with the way that they talked about women and things like that. So those safety lectures, where we weren't allowed to eat there? They made it very clear if we ate there, we would probably die because we would touch something and it would kill us. So we weren't allowed to eat there. There were lecture classes there too. So most of my classes were in those labs, we weren't using the equipment, but we had to be in there for our lecture classes. So I would have like two or three classes in a row: a 9:30, an 11:00, and a 12:30 in one of those labs. We wouldn't be allowed to eat anything.

So especially after being diabetic, I'm sneaking my little fruit snacks on the side if I was low, but I was also so embarrassed about it. I would feel low and I would just get up, and I would always sit at the end near the door so that I would be less disruptive and go and then test in the bathroom and be like, "Oh, I'm 45. Like, great." Then I would just kind of sit in there and miss some class. I didn't wanna be called out for eating anything in class. Of course I had the academic accommodation so you're allowed to eat in class. But they very much stressed that it doesn't really apply because it's still a lab space and like, okay, fine, I can bring food in there.

Sometimes, depending on the professor, they're not gonna say anything to me. Generally, you know, I'm also a woman who's there, so everyone's already paying attention to me. The professors are already paying attention to me because I'm the only one there. I'm also coming in with like, "I have these accommodations." Not only am I a woman who you already have a preconception about, but also I'm disabled and I have to do extra things for me now. So there was this element of embarrassment of, "I know that they're probably going to let me eat in here, but I don't wanna be the only girl and also the only one who's allowed to eat anything."

So it was those specific things that would affect my academics because I would leave class and sit in the bathroom and eat my fruit snacks because I was too low. Then, you know, that you would open it or something in class, it would crinkle and everyone would hear. I was like, "Ah, I don't wanna... I can't open this bag because people are gonna hear. It's quiet right now and they're gonna know it's me." I was embarrassed about it. Then I would be between classes sitting outside with a bag of Cheerios or whatever, just being like, "I gotta eat something." It's like when your stomach grumbles in class and, you know, people hear. In those cases I feel like it's so easy even for people who aren't disabled, it's so easy to just not eat all day. And then for me, if I don't eat all day, I'm not getting anything done and I'm not taking in any information either.

So they put you in classes no matter what level you're in because engineering is shoved into a four-year program for information that does not take four years. So you're taking four classes a day of information and you can spread it out. You can do your best to pick classes that work with your schedule, but sometimes there's only one section of every class offered for some of these smaller disciplines. So like there would be an elective class that I wanted to take, but there's only one time slot for that elective and it just happens to be 12:30 to 3:15. So either I have to eat an early lunch, a super late one, or just not eat. So many students will just choose not to eat, or bring a snack or something like that.

If you're not eating, then that affects your ability to process information as well. So it's not like my grades ever struggled really bad or anything like that, but it was, academically I was always very hard on myself. I didn't accept getting lower grades. I just wouldn't. But I know that I did not take in information the way that I should be taking in information because of these things. There could be many different factors. But I think the way that the schedules worked out, and me being diabetic, and me being embarrassed about being diabetic, and my classes all day span through lunch sometimes through dinner, like a 6:30 to 9:15 class, or a 5:00 to 7:45 at night; those ones were the worst. Like 5:00 to 7:45, like that's every amount of dinner.

Sometimes you're just, you're just hungry. So you're sitting there and you can't even take anything in. I think a lot of what I learned was just how to pass the class and not the information, I guess. Not the critical thinking aspect. I learned how the professor would be likely to set tests up so that I can pass the tests and end up with an A or B in the class and keep my GPA high, so I didn't really learn. If you put me in a lab and told me to run the oscilloscope; I have a degree in electrical engineering, but I don't think I'd be able to do it. There's obviously a lot of factors not just what we're talking about either, but a lot of the heavy discipline specific classes junior and senior year was definitely affected by the fact that I'm like trying to learn how to be diabetic and I'm like, I remember specifically one time I was in electromagnetics; the most proud C+ I have ever gotten. I was so proud of that C+. I tried so hard. I watched videos constantly. It was the hardest class I've ever been in. I was so happy to get that C+. I'd never been happy to get a C+ before in my life. I was so happy about it. That first semester junior year is when I was diagnosed.

So I'm like sitting in class and I'm feeling myself going really low, but we're talking about something really important and this is probably the closest I ever got to passing out from a low because I'm trying to pay attention. I'm like, "This is important. If I leave right now, I'm going to miss this. And this could be like really, you know, a big deal." It's worse to me to take out the bag of fruit snacks and hear it than it is to not listen to the information. It was better for me to be low and suffer than actually take out the fruit snacks and try to fix the low while I'm still in there. I remember I took a picture of it later 'cause I was like, I can't believe I put myself in that position because I could see as my notes were going down the page that it's just all shaky from half the page down. I took a picture of it and I was like, "Can you guess where I like started going low?" Eventually I was like, "I can't even hear anymore. Uh, I don't know what's going on. So I can't even get anything from this anymore even if I wanna pay attention."

So eventually I had to get up and leave. I grabbed my testing thing and went into the bathroom or whatever, and I tested at 41 and I think that wasn't the lowest that I ever tested, but it was the lowest I ever felt in a situation that was that intense. I never did that again because I was like, "That was not worth it. I should have just taken the bag out. I didn't have to test. I knew I was low so I could have just eaten the food and no one would have cared. Then maybe I could have gotten something from that lecture." I couldn't even get anything from the lecture either and I ended up having to just recover for the rest of the period. So I couldn't even get anything out of it anyway. It was situations like that where it was my own fault. Like in a way, not actually, but like it's my own mentality that's putting me in this position rather than anything the school is specifically doing or not doing for me. It's just the way that things are perceived and culturally and socially and being in a minority group, as an engineer and things like that, that I think were really affecting me.

I went home for COVID and my family had no idea what to do with me because now suddenly I'm diabetic.

Last time I was living with them, I wasn't diabetic. Now I show back up and I have all of these extra things that everyone has to worry about. So there was that aspect too of like, "Can you eat this? Can you, can you do this? Like, are you allowed to do these things?" I was like, "Yeah, but like, I don't... like, yes, I can eat these things," but it was hard to explain to everyone. I think for my parents and family, this is something that's random. No one in my family has diabetes. No one has had to be close with anyone with diabetes. I didn't either before I had it. So I got diagnosed in September, a couple months go by, of course my parents come down and they're trying to look things up, they're trying to learn, like I'm trying to learn. But then they get to go home and they can check in and they call to see how everything's going. I was manual at the time, so it's not like they could see my blood sugar or anything like that. I was just fully manually needles manual, blood sugar checks.

Then I come back in March and I kind of have it figured out a bit more. I know what's happening. So I'm a little aggressive about it, like the fact that no one knows what to do with me, like it just made me upset and I felt like, I guess generally that everyone should already know what to do. My birthday is in June. It was my 21st. I'd been living back at my mom's house for a couple months at that point. My mom had decided to throw me a surprise birthday party during COVID with all my friends there and things at the house. She wanted to do something nice for me because I just got disabled and COVID was a thing and no one could do anything or go anywhere. But it was so like, you know, my boyfriend took me out on a hike that day so that everyone could go over and get set up or whatever. I had kind of a feeling that something was going on. You can't surprise me. I hate surprises. So I like, I don't like to not know. I had gotten off from work. I was just working at McDonald's at the time because I needed something to do. Everyone was just home. Plus I needed to, if I was home, I was gonna start making money so that I could pay back things. So I had got off from work and it was a Saturday so I was confused as to why they had given me off from work on a Saturday. I have actually worked with my best friend, Dakota, at the time, she was my roommate for years and years. Dakota worked there as well. Her dad was the regional manager of the McDonald's in the area.

So she made sure I got off 'cause she knew it was happening. It was a very sweet gesture from everyone involved. But it was also during COVID and I walked into my house with a ton of people in it and it scared me. I wasn't not trusting that people would show up and get me sick, but I was also like, "I haven't been around this many people in three months. Like this is a lot." It was also the middle of the afternoon. It was like 3:00 PM and I had eaten lunch, before I went on this hike to make sure I'm keeping up with the times that I need to eat and how much insulin I was giving myself in a day.

I get to this party and it's the middle of the afternoon, so it's not really time for lunch, it's not really time for dinner, but it's a party, so that's when the food is being served. I got really, really stressed because I hadn't planned to be eating and it's party food, right? I hadn't been to a party since really getting diagnosed. I hadn't had to prepare for something like that and I couldn't mentally or physically prepare to be at my own party. So, I was still manual at the time. I think I was on a Dexcom, but I did not have an insulin pump yet. So I was using manual injections, which made everything... now it doesn't matter, I'll eat when I want to eat. It's so much easier to just shove insulin into the insulin pump, you can do it whenever. But, the manual injection is much more difficult because you can't see what's happening as it's there.

So I ended up going up into my room, at my own party. I went up into my room, I was just crying. My mom was so mad at me 'cause she didn't know, it wasn't her fault. She didn't... she didn't know what to do about it. She was doing something nice for me and my friends were doing something nice for me. Everyone came to celebrate my 21st birthday because I hadn't been able to see anyone in three months. And like, how could I be so upset? And she's right. But also I was just so not mentally prepared for it that I got really, really stressed. Then my friends don't really know what's going on either. They don't know what being diabetic means. I got really protective over it when I first got diagnosed and I didn't wanna talk about it and I didn't want to try to educate people on it. I was embarrassed by it. So I wanted to make sure that it didn't exist as much as possible. So my friends were bringing sugar-free stuff without knowing what that actually means, which is not sugar-free. It was a note for, you know, whoever might read this in the future, if it says sugar-free, it's not true. You have to look at the carbs. No one knew that, so I didn't tell them.

It was just, it was a stressful experience and no one was really wrong, but, no one was really right either. I couldn't tell my mom like, "Hey, make sure you don't throw me a surprise party at 3:00 PM 'cause I..." I honestly didn't expect that my mom or any of my friends would want to come to a COVID party and we were all outside obviously. It was an outdoor event 'cause it's the middle of June. Coming home and there's a bunch of people in my house and I haven't seen people in months. I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to die because I'm going to get COVID and then I'm going to die." Then my mom is like, "Hey, dinner is now because it's your party." Moonie, my partner, is sad because he took me out too, and he's like, "This is gonna be fun for her and stuff." Then he's sad because I'm sad. So it was just kind of a mess. Of course, I had fun and I got over myself, but it was just the initial, like, I'm so worried about eating anything.

Like, what if I go low at my party? What if my blood sugar goes high and I'm upset and angry or I'm sick and I can't do anything about it, or everything's just out. So I don't know how many carbs are in the stuff that I'm eating and I have to just guess. I could be wrong and it could lead to something happening. All these people came out here for me. I'm trying to express, I don't know, I haven't mentally prepared for this. That turns into, "But can you eat that? Can't you eat that? Can you eat this? Are you allowed to have this? I thought you said you could eat this," and things like that. So I said "Yes, I, I can, I just..." You know, trying to explain the mental preparation for it versus like the physical ability to do things. It's been four years since I've been diagnosed and my mom still asks me, "Can you eat that?" She tries. Now I know I'm more confident as well, so I'm less defensive over it and annoyed when people don't understand as I was at first I think.

Then senior year started and I was much better because I had moved back and I was an RA now. So I had been able to move back and save money on the cost of living on campus. At that point I had become way more aware of what on-campus resources existed. I didn't know about the University Pantry or anything or the University Fresh Food Program and stuff. I just didn't know. So I was doing that every week, during senior year. So I really never had to buy food unless there was something specific. I would eat salads a lot, so I wanted to get mixed greens or whatever. Usually you wouldn't have things like that at the University Fresh Food program. So it got much, much better senior year. I didn't have any problem after I knew about more resources and things, I didn't really have any issues with that.

I learned about the University Fresh Food program a bit before that because I think it was the electrical engineering department that had mentioned, they had been trying to put some food and accessories and things upstairs on the third floor for students and they would get things from the fresh food program, I'm pretty sure. So they had said that there was something like that. But it was only on Fridays at 10:00. I think it's still Friday at 10:00. I hadn't really put much effort into it because as soon as I learned what the time was, I was like, "Well, I can't do that. I would class or things at the time." Then senior year I had class at 11:00. It was convenient, you know, I'll just drive to the engineering building instead to show up. But there was one time where we used to go, me and my roommates used to go end of junior year before COVID started and senior year. We would walk up instead of being in cars. They yelled at us once for it that we walked instead of drove and had our trunks open or whatever. We just walked up with bags and they yelled at us before for it. So I was thrown off from that for a bit. I went the other week and they're definitely not as good now, just more ingredients now. But I used to be able to get whole fruit, whole cantaloupe or something and a whole bag of potatoes and sometimes milk. That was big. But I went the other week and there's not much which is fine, I don't really need it anymore, but it made me wonder about it, 'cause I don't think I saw any students there. But we got vegetables and we would be able to go on Friday and then see what we have and then come up with food that we can make because of what we got, which was awesome. Then if we needed specific ingredients, then we could run to the store and get other stuff. So usually my routine senior year would be Fridays; I would go to the fresh food program, see what I got, and then immediately cart over to the shop, grab whatever I could find there that might be helpful and then show back up, figure out our plan for the next week. The University Pantry was great.

The only thing that was difficult about it was I would have to come over to the engineering building and then go all the way back to go to the pantry. They weren't anywhere near each other, but I had a car so it wasn't that big of a deal. I would go every week. It was helpful. Having a free meal plan senior year was also great. So I really didn't have to buy much food at all. Also some of my roommates’ parents would come and buy them a bunch of food and then they would go home and they'd be like, "I have all this food. Like, you can have it if you want." So I didn't really have to spend much money on food senior year, 'cause my meal plan they gave us for RAs, you get 14 a week meal plan for free. So what I would do is in the block meal plan, you can buy as many as you want anytime in the meals per week plan. You can only buy one per meal period. So what I would do is it was 2:30, I think the meal plan switched over. I would get one right before 2:30 and then my partner would get one right after 2:30 and we would go together and have lunch. So I would just cover him and me for lunch and then we would have, you know, whatever was free on campus. So super, super helpful. I think it was also because I had a car. First year when I was really stuck here, I couldn't have my car, I was not disabled at the time, so I had no reason to try to request my car. I was just kind of stuck here. I was at the whim of, if my parents wanted to get me, they would and I didn't wanna leave. So I didn't, and I had my meal plan or whatever. But it was so easy the first year to just not really worry much about it. I was stingy with my dining dollars, and my parents would come down and they would bring me the little microwave mac and cheese things I could make in my dorm, and I would have little snack bags that I would just bring with me. So I wouldn't even go and get full meals a lot of the time.

That was much easier because I wasn't thinking about it as often as I am now. I wasn't diabetic then. So I didn't really have any issue besides the fact that I was a stingy person. I was worried about the fact that I already took out loans for food. I was like, "I could just not eat instead and I don't have to get any loans for it." But, that was generally, yeah, the pantry and fresh food program. Gourmet dining does have nutritionists but I don't think it's a well-known thing, but I know about it because I used to work with her when I worked for after hours to plan midnight food bars and things like that. So yeah, I don't think many people utilize gourmet dining. The wellness center as well. I used to speak with a nutritionist there when I was first diabetic. She helped me get on meals or just come up with ideas for things that I could have.

For a change to food insecurity issues on campus; speaking from a very idealistic and altruistic kind of standpoint, Venus and Neptune are conjunct with each other right now, so some fantastical interpretations of things are easier to come up with. But I would ultimately change the culture itself, not the resources that are available or the people who are willing to help you because there are those things. We know about those things and I talk to my students about those things. But I think the culture around it is still, if you're receiving this support, it means that you are poor or you have something wrong with you or your life. That's just the perception because culturally that's the way that we think colleges offer resources for those students who there are, and “something wrong with”, they wouldn't offer, they wouldn't have to offer those resources if there wasn't a food insecurity problem or people didn't have the money to have food. But anyone should be able to, even if they have money for food, they shouldn't have to spend as much money as they do on food. You know, many students can afford a meal plan, some can't. But since some can't, we have these resources, it should be that anyone can have a meal plan and get these resources.

Some of our students are parents themselves or can't buy the 60 block meal plan because it's a thousand dollars. Some of our students can't afford that. We don't want those students to starve, so we're going to offer free resources for them. But then culturally that's perceived a certain way. Like, "Oh, well these must be disenfranchised, or students are minoritized students, potentially underrepresented students. Like that's who must be needing these resources." I think if we changed the mentality of that culturally and societally, any person should just be able to have a meal plan instead of "We came up with these resources for those students who can't have one." Like, "We have these resources for students who have 8:00 AM classes to 2:30 and they can't and they don't have any breaks. We have these resources, we have your office with a bunch of food in it, or we have upstairs on the third floor, there's a fridge up there, a snack cabinet or something for students who can't run across campus to grab something to eat. We have these resources available to them," but it shouldn't be because you have some sort of underrepresented identity or something like that.

I don't know how this would be changed besides, societally make it easier to live, make it better to live in the world and be a college student at all. 'Cause many of these students are, they're taking care of themselves for the first time. Many of them don't think about eating because they haven't had to take care of themselves before their parents or their guardians would tell them, "Okay, it's time for dinner." Then you would have dinner. It wasn't you having to remind yourself that it's time for dinner or something. So then because of that as well, many students just won't eat. Engineering, it's... we learned about this on a project that I did. Like the culture around engineering is, you have to be stressed to be an engineer. If you're not stressed, you're not doing it right. So a lot of that becomes, "Well, I only got four hours of sleep and I only got one hour of sleep. Or like, the last time I ate was two days ago. Or like, oh, well the last time I ate was last week because I haven't had time." It becomes a competitive, stressful environment of how stressed you are because of the amount of stress measures, I guess how much you're trying or how hard you're working. So it becomes even like if you get to say, "I haven't eaten in two days, that can be like an ego boost in some way-"

"... like, I'm doing it right. I'm doing engineering the right way because I'm stressed and I'm not taking care of myself. So that means I must be truly getting what I'm supposed to be getting out of engineering because the other engineering students are doing the same thing and we all end up with A's in the end and, students who don't work as hard as us aren't ending up getting these better grades" and things like that. So I think there's just a huge societal and cultural shift that needs to happen as a whole. The best that we can do now is just to stress the resources that are there. But if I could, if it was possible with me, I would just change the perception culturally of how a college student should be living. I think that would make it easier for students to actually not only be able to afford a meal plan, but also just be able to be like, "I can't work right now because I need to eat something." Instead of "I'm so hungry but I have to finish this because that's what an engineer does or that's what a college student does." Right. So a very long-winded explanation to say that the culture kind of sucks in society 'cause it's kind of bad.

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