In this episode, Assistant Opinion Editor Ivy Frater and Opinion Columnist Allie Deutsch dive into surviving — and thriving in — Northwestern winters, dining hall rankings and lessons from freshman year.
SARAH PARK: My hot take is that onions are disgusting and I want them taken off everything.
RUBY DOWLING: My hot take is I think professors reading the syllabus in class is a little silly.
CARMEN GASKIN: My hot take is that streaming services have ruined the film industry.
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IVY FRATER: You just heard hot takes from Copy Editor Sarah Park, Multimedia Managing Editor Ruby Dowling and Copy Editor Carmen Gaskin. From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Ivy Frater.
ALLIE DEUTSCH: And I’m Allie Deutsch.
IVY FRATER: And this is “Who Asked You?” a podcast capturing opinions on the issues that matter to us and to you.
So, Allie, you just introduced your new column, “Two Cents,” this week — which is so exciting! Your first piece was “What I wish I knew before coming to Northwestern,” so I was wondering if you could tell me about what surprised you the most about life on campus.
ALLIE DEUTSCH: Sure. So, one of the things that surprised me the most is that I expected Northwestern winter to be really, really bad. I had people tell me that it’s gonna be searing pain on all of my exposed skin as soon as I walk outside. I had a heated vest, I had UNIQLO underlayers, I had all of the stuff. And then winter came around, and I was honestly underwhelmed. I thought it would be way worse than it was, and maybe I’m hardier than I thought. I don’t think so. But I found winter to be pretty manageable.
With that being said, I think that a lot of the reason why winter hits so hard at Northwestern for people is seasonal depression. Especially because winter quarter, not only weatherwise, but also class difficulty wise, people can have some struggles with that. There’s white light therapy in Henry Crown Sports Pavilion to help with that. So that, I would say, is a bigger issue than the actual cold itself.
I will say that it stays chilly longer than where I’m from outside (Washington) D.C. Now that it’s May, I’m still kind of walking around with a light jacket on, which I don’t love, but it’s nothing unbearable.
IVY FRATER: Okay, so you talked about seasonal depression. I definitely relate to that. The winter at Northwestern is honestly a little bit horrible, but we got through it. We survived our first winters. So I was wondering, do you have any unconventional tips on how to combat seasonal depression?
ALLIE DEUTSCH: Ooh. Unconventional tips to combat seasonal depression: a cup of tea. Allison Dining Hall has an entire stack of teas, green, black, whatever, and I’ve been having it every morning, warms me up. And yeah, that’s definitely helped me get through my winter.
IVY FRATER: Speaking of dining halls, I think the people want to know what is your ranking of the Northwestern dining halls?
ALLIE DEUTSCH: Okay, it’s been a while since I’ve been to Sarge(nt Dining Commons), so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I would say my ranking is Elder (Dining Commons), then Allison (Dining Commons), then the combination of the Plexs (Foster Walker Plex East and Foster Walker Plex West). I am gonna just treat them as one entity, and then Sargent. Plex is slept on. Everyone says, “oh, Plex.” But I will swear by the stir fry. I think it is the best meal on campus. I was blown away by it. I get it probably every week, and, yeah, no, definitely try it.
Elder is top and with good reason. I feel like it’s pretty widely established as the number one dining hall. They have every week, kind of a new, what’s that called?
IVY FRATER: The United Table.
ALLIE DEUTSCH: United Table. Yes. That’s my place. They had a cacio e pepe gnocchi. The other week.
IVY FRATER: That was good.
ALLIE DEUTSCH: That was mind blowing. So, yeah, I feel like Northwestern dining has its ups and downs. Some days it’ll be like, no. But generally, I can find something pretty decent to eat for lunch and dinner, and then there are definitely meal exchanges, that can be pretty good.
IVY FRATER: I feel like I have to take your advice. I never go to Plex. I am a Sarge warrior. I kind of love Sargent, which is an unpopular opinion.
Speaking of dining, what do you think is the best meal you’ve had in a dining hall? Or are there any creative things that you do to kind of spice up the boring dining hall food?
ALLIE DEUTSCH: What I tried to do is make milk tea using dining hall ingredients. So what I did, and it kind of worked — it wasn’t like a masterpiece, but it tasted okay — is I took a splash of water and put two bags of black tea in it and then I kind of let it sit so that it was really, really strong. Then I poured some milk in it, and then added honey and like a sugar packet, and put it in my dorm fridge for a long time until it was cold, and then I drank it. It was pretty good. So, it’s not traditional, but it definitely was kind of fun to make, and I would recommend trying it.
IVY FRATER: Wow, that is fun. I feel like I need to do some more things to spice up my life here like that. So to kind of sum it all up, I know we’re both reaching the end of our freshman year. What would you say if you could go back to yourself when you were in this position a year ago and give yourself any advice? What would you say?
ALLIE DEUTSCH: I would say, honestly, it’s gonna be nerve wracking. But it shouldn’t be. And that’s coming from a highly anxious person. I expected it to be completely life changing when I stepped here. I expected to feel completely different, to feel like a different version of myself instantly. I expected everything to kind of click together. And that wasn’t really how it was at all. Life just kind of goes on.
You come here, and you wake up in a different bed, and you talk to some new people and, overall, it takes a while for you to kind of realize how different your life has become. And that’s really one of my takeaways is that you kind of just have to take it one step at a time and be chill about it because it’s a big change, but it’s really not as groundbreaking and life altering as you expect it to be. It takes kind of a while for you to get to that point.
IVY FRATER: All right, life goes on. Well, Allie, thank you so much for talking with me today.
ALLIE DEUTSCH: Thank you.
And with that, from The Daily Northwestern, I’m Ivy Frater.
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Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
