A lot of us at the USC School of Cinematic Arts feel really bad about the money we spend on eating the poor quality and very expensive food available around USC. I think we just figure, “We’re already paying $60 an hour for our classes, what’s $5 for a salad?”.
As I enter into my last year at USC, I realized that I have an excellent set of data from my mint.com account. Mint.com categorizes all your purchases, and I have been using it since January 2010. I may have missed out on the valuable information from my 507 semester (doubt it), but I have all my food purchasing habits through 508, 546 and 547. I did bring food quite a bit (see previous entry) that I could microwave. But as I often complain, one cannot pack enough food for a 15 hour day.
Here are the statistics, superlatives and analysis of the places that I have eaten on campus. Part 1 is simply an overview of my personal habits and trends for Spring 2010, Fall 2010 and Spring 2011.
Part 2 will be about the Coffee Bean. 
Part 3 will be an impersonal cheat sheet of campus dining options for me to use this fall. But if you’re just entering USC for the fall or if you’re just curious how much you might have spent these years at school, this is probably close.
FOOD SPENDING FROM 3 SEMESTERS AT USC:
| FAST FOOD: | RESTAURANTS: | |||
| Total Visits | 109 | Total Visits | 58 | |
| Average Spent | $7.41 | Average Spent | $15.13 | |
| Total Spent | $1,671.23 | Total Spent | $974.53 | |
| SUPERLATIVES | Average Bill | |
| Most expensive | The Lab | $21.13 |
| Least Expensive | BK/Chick Fil-A | $5.00 |
| Least expensive restaurant | Galen Center | $11.45 |
| Most expensive fast food | Seeds | $11.22 |
| Most visits | Chipotle | 23 visits |
| Times at UV | 24 | Mostly at Cilantro |
| Most money spent | The Lab | But worth it! |
UPDATE: It occurred to me to calculate by semester. Couldn’t help it:
| SPRING 2010, 508 SEMESTER | |
| Amount Spent: | $203.69 |
| Ate the most at: | Subway (Sad times) |
CTPR 508
is hell. You are randomly paired with 2 strangers in the school to make 3 films over a very few weeks. The 4 professors are especially harsh on your scripts and twice as harsh about your dailies (You’re just documenting the action, Josie!). It’s a particularly hellish semester if you hate your trio-mates, which I most certainly did not. We’re the three best friends that anybody could ever have.
Three best friends that anybody could ever have.
During 508, I ate the most at Subway (Average meal price: $6.75). When you only have an hour for lunch between your sessions, you can be sure that you’ll get your super gross sandwich bought and eaten in time. In fact, everything that semester is fast food.
Chipotle for me and my triomates
I ate quite a bit at the University Village, a food court near campus, as well. That way, my triomates could get whatever they wanted and I could get my shredded beef salad at Cilantro Mexican Grill (Average meal price: $6.42). Then we’d sit outside and talk out our miseries and budgets.
| FALL 2010, 546 SEMESTER | |
| Amount Spent: | $968.58 (Whoosh!) |
| Ate the most at: | Traditions (Drank a lot) |
CTPR 546
destroys. Really long days of editing, harder notes from the now 6 professors, and a much bigger crew of 12 people. The bar Traditions/Traddies/Trannies opened (Average meal price: $15.03).
SF Fans watching the Giants play in the World Series
I was introduced to Soy Grill for Sushi (Average price: $10.05), which later gave me food poisoning. So that will be included with a big ole asterisk on part two.
I also went to the number cafes for the first time, Cafe 29 (Average price: $20.96) and Cafe 84 (Average price: $6.59). Cafe 29 is a semi romantic, semi undergrad porch restaurant with soft Christmas lights and delicious burgers. Cafe 84, hidden near the Lyon center, has salads you can weigh by the pound, which became a staple of “I got so fat during 546″ dieting. Downtown’s IHOP ($14.33) also became a sad times refuge at 1am when you haven’t had a chance to have dinner and the labs have finally closed. The 546 I edited also had a scene where they ate bacon (No, it was not “How to Eat Bacon”, it was “Blackbird”) and this drove us crazy, leading to many late night IHOP trips.
| SPRING 2011, 547 SEMESTER | ||
| Amount Spent: | $461.61 (Better!) | |
| Ate the most at: | Cafe 84 (Trying to lose beer weight) | |
CTPR 547
is delightful…at first. The documentary class accepts that you got what you got and you can’t go get something again, you can only get more. But what “more” is what usually leads to the disagreements towards the end. Again, 6 professors have radically different ideas of where the story could go. Thank god Chick-Fil-A (Average price: $5.09) graced our neighborhood and became a great way to convince Evan Matthews walk to Chipotle (Average price: $10.05 but who really cares?) with me.
Evan Matthews deserves a photo.
The Galen Center (Average price: $11.45), where the athletes go to eat, also started taking cards, so it was the first time it showed up on my mint.com. Our 547 class started having our meetings there twice a week, so that lead to some serious Galen spending. But they have real food (fish, mashed potatoes, asparagus, etc) that is really very delicious and a fancy salad bar.
THE LAB:
A special note about the Lab. The Lab is 507 city. This is where, in your first semester, you go to “have a beer”. It is only in quotations because of the social obligations and insinuations that phraseology implies. Having a beer means you just ran a few laps with Professor John Watson or had a great guest lecturer from Professor Todd Robinson. Or you discovered that your second 507 is required to have someone work with you…and boozing up Jeremy Royce first will lubricate the “will you shoot for me?” question. (this is a lie joke)
After 507′s semester, you cannot make it between classes to the lab. So it is a purely “Hey! Lets go talk about our scripts after class!” place. You never talk about your silly scripts. It simply becomes regular gossip city (which is far more delightful).
But with every end of semester screening, we all troop to the Lab. They have fantastic appetizers, amazing burgers and inexpensive beers. I went to the lab only a very few times per semester outside of the end screening.
Or celebrating the first day of shooting 546…
Oktoberfest beers to celebrate the editors cut with my 546 partner.
Or day before picture lock for 547 with my editing partner…
The Lab earns a bad wrap on my statistics because it comes across as the most expensive place to eat. But I’m always so happy to spend $40 on beers and kobe beef sliders when I’m celebrating with my triomates, Kelly and Kaveh, or my two Evans, Schrodek and Matthews, that I’ve edited with.
FALL 2011:
There are a couple places I’m excited to try this fall. I’ll be taking the doc pitch class, hopefully the television class, a feature writing class and a small crit studies class. So I’m going to need a lot of brain food, as opposed to editor food. I need to get a milkshake at Ground Zero and lunch from the food truck India Jones. The architecture students eat at the USC Shop Cafe, apparently, so I need to find that. La Taquiza is recommended by the foodies of the school. I also will start going to Armando’s food truck more often, which is basically super delicious and inexpensive. I only was told about it by fellow editor Kelly late last semester.
So hopefully I will be better about bringing food to school in the fall. I know I will be better about cooking when those loans start being due…
I’m impressed, Josie. A tremendously dorky post that really fascinated me.
Good to know someone else is unhealthily obsessed with Mint, too.
now i can stalk you even more josie!
You are your Father and Mother’s daughter, that is for sure.