Trick-or-treating and receiving lollipops at the doctor’s office are often seen as only for kids, but hey, college students love candy too!
As Rawan, a student at UC Berkeley puts it, “I like eating candy for breakfast and all the time. When I was still majoring in computer science, I couldn’t code without eating Mike and Ike’s. I appreciate all types of confectionary delights–chocolates, hard candies, taffies, caramels, gummies, bubble gum, ethnic sweets, you name it. Candy is an essential part of my diet. I’m pretty sure I’m 60% candy at this point.”
In the spirit of Halloween, Spoon University at Berkeley ran a survey to find out what candies college students like the most.
Surprise, surprise. The top three candies were Kit Kat at 15.20%, Twix at 13.51% and Sour Patch at 9.46% out of 41 options. Other popular candies included Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups & Pieces, Sour Worms, M&M’s and Hershey’s chocolate bars.
Photo by Jocelyn Hsu
Clearly, chocolate candy is the winner with college students. Our question asking “What type of candy do you like most?” with chocolate, gummies, hard candy and lollipops as answer choices came back with a majority of students choosing chocolate (60.73%). Most other folks (31.35%) chose gummies as their favorite type of candy.
“Chocolate never fails you. It’s rich, sweet and always tastes wonderful. It’s indulgent and comforting,” gushes Courtney, a writer for Spoon University at Berkeley.
Since chocolate is oh-so popular, we also asked what type of chocolate students like the most. We were pleasantly surprised to find that dark chocolate won with an overwhelming 47.19%, while milk chocolate logged 37.29%, and white chocolate received 12.87% of the votes. Somehow, 2.64% of the students didn’t eat chocolate. Yeah, we don’t get it either.
Although there are all sorts of delicious candies and chocolates out there, some of the inventions that students cooked up sound even better:
- Reese’s Nutella Cups – Alana, University of Tennessee
- Chocolate and caramel covered gummies with the rice crisps of Crunch bars – Chad, UC Berkeley
- Textured lollipop with little mini candies inside of it that are super sour or fizzy – Rawan, UC Berkeley
- Sour blue raspberry flavored candy – Naomi, Occidental College
- Crunchy chocolate blob with dark chocolate fudge inside and fruity and/or sour sprinkles on top – Mikaela, UC Berkeley
- Butterbeer hard candy – Alyssa, Florida State College at Jacksonville
Infographic by Jessica He
Note: Our survey was completely voluntary and spread through social media. We received 326 responses but only used the 303 that were from college students.