Tyler Durham

Dr. Campbell
Anthropology 107
12 February 2015
Today I observed people in Lehman dining hall. I choose this
location just because Im not familiar with the whole atmosphere and
thought this would be a good way to broaden my horizon. Lehman is a
big dining hall so I narrowed my observation to the cereal section of
the dining hall.
The cereal section in Lehman isnt very large area but it does
have a lot to it. It consists of nine different cereals, and they are very
cramped and close to each other. To accommodate this small space
each cereal is placed in a dispenser and this maximizes the little space
given. The cereal is a section labeled grains. Along with the cereal are
bagels, but there isnt much selection to those, they consist of plain,
wheat and cinnamon. In the background are neutral colors and mellow
music. At the moment Beyonc music is playing and many of the
people seem to know her music. Many people are lip singing the words
as they are approaching the cereal section in a mellow non-distracting
manner.
Cereal is usually considered a common breakfast food, in
Lehman dining hall it seems to be considered more of a dessert meal.
Most people come to this section after they have already eaten their
main course. There also seems to be a distinct approach to how the

cereal is obtained. I noted that seven out of ten people seem to grab
their bowl, dispense the cereal and then grab milk in that order. The
other three people grabbed the bowl, got milk and then dispensed the
cereal. To add on to that two out of those three were blonde girls.

Out of the nine selections of cereal to students the most popular

seems to be Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and not many people mix their
flavors together by getting more than one. Only a select few seem to
mix their flavors and they have bigger bowls as well. They get them
from the salad section here and these bowls are deeper but generally
look the same in all other aspects to the normal designated cereal
bowls. The people who do mix their cereal, both of them have been
males, they appear to be very muscular and tall, possible athletes.
These two males were the only two that got seconds, no one else get
more than one bowl. Its interesting because they also had the biggest
bowls out of everyone I watched get their food and they also came
back for more very quickly.
In conclusion to my observation it was nice to see something
new and see how people behave in Lehman. Ultimately, it was
portrayed that many people consume cereal but not only as a
breakfast food but also as a dessert, considering they are consuming it
right after their normal meal. And the majority of people who do grab
cereal after their dinner do it in the same general pattern.