I can shed some light, perhaps, on student-y issues, though my example is not from student days, nor from the US.
Once upon a time I lived in Brixton (South London - lovely place an unnecessarily castigated as either too rough, or too yuppified). My flatmate, and the owner of the place, Hugh, decided that he wanted a glass brick wall between the kitchen and the entrance hall. His plans gradually became more and more ambitious until we had knocked down any number of walls and had lost the use of: the kitchen, the downstairs bedroom, the dining room.
So we co-opted the downstairs bathroom as makeshift pantry and kitchen. The problem was that the only cooking implement we possessed was a microwave oven. And we had no microwave-safe cooking utensils. Hence the student-y set-up. Which lasted six months (the glass bricks were a long time coming, and an even longer time actually laying).
Our solution consisted of living off, in the main, rice and lentils. The cooking method was simplicity itself: we took the handle, plunger and lid off the Bodum coffee-pot and placed the lentils in it, bunged it in the nuker, and cooked until soft. Then poured it out into a bowl and started on the rice. Similar, but one-stage, operations, helped boil the water for tea, coffee and the like.
Life without a kettle, It's possible.
cheer
the sunshine warrior
