Dorms usually ban them, but for everyone else you can buy single induction burners relatively cheaply for cooking. Instant pots and similar products are another compact alternative.

When I was a student, I did a fair amount of cooking in shared kitchens in dorms, mainly because I enjoyed it and it helped me relieve stress. My goto strategy was to pick an unpopular time (middle of the week during the day, ideally) and meal prep for 2-3 hours, then mix those meals in with restaurant/cafeteria meals for the next week. I was able to make that work reasonably well.

Good strategy. Most people don’t know this but in San Francisco ferry market plaza whose first floor is full of restaurants, there is no gas connection. The code doesn’t allow for fire extinguishing infrastructure and the overhead foam sprayers etc. pretty much all of them have electric and semi prepped food made off site made in a commissary kitchen or at another restaurant branch.

Restaurant code and permits are notoriously difficult and in San Francisco expensive ..a nightmare actually. If restaurants can do without a stove..cooking in a dorm is easy peasy.

Get an airfryer and an instant pot. Neither one takes up much space on a countertop, and they are easy to clean and store. I hardly use my stove anymore unless I'm baking something.

Instant pots are a game changer. It does limit most menus to one pot meals but still a pathway to good nutrition.

In fact I have my stove unplugged and 3 instant pots sitting on top of it (and an air fryer near by)

Ditto! I barely use my stove these days! For Indian food..the transition was super easy from pressure cooker to instant pot.

Our neighbor who moved to the East coast sent me a bag of wild rice from her state. I made a wild rice and mushroom soup in less than half an hour. The same would have been a production earlier as wild rice takes longer to cook than regular rice. I was also able to make it a larger batch and freeze it for later.

I am used to flash freezing having worked in restaurants and I am not a fan of freezing left overs in a home freezer and probably won’t be doing this again if this fails the texture test.

The smaller instant pot was perfect to make a nice roux for thickening and it doesn’t burn. And clean up is a breeze.

You can cook more things in a microwave than you'd imagine.