What is a 'Gyp Room' anyway?!

At my accomodation at uni there used to be a kitchen every floor, equiped with hobs, fridges and microwaves. Somehow some power-freak fire safety officer recently decided that the kitchens weren't safe enough and forced my college to make immediate changes. Those fire heads claimed that our kitchens are unsafe 'gyp rooms' and not qualified as kitchens, and demanded, in addition to relocating the 'gyp room's, the removal of ALL hobs in student accomodation. So now my day starts like this: wake up, shower, walk towards the kitchen but realise its completely empty, wearily crawl two floors down to find my fridge, get the milk out, crawl up two floors whilst complaining about the inconvenience, have breakfast... etc. In place of the hobs they gave us some weird so-called 'oven/grill/microwave'. So in the middle of exam term these guys decided to unsubtly annoy 142 students and rob them of their rights to cook. Did I mention our catered hall food is excremental? honestly, colour-wise and texture-wise at least. Anyway, my college defended and claimed that students can still cook a variety of food using their silly 'oven/grill/microwave' which frankly just looks like an ordinary microwave to me. Just what can you make with them things? can you bake a cake? do a roast? how do you even make pasta?! As strongly tempted as I am to put a large amount of tin foil in each of those brand new 'oven/grill/microwaves' and setting them off at the same time, I actually have to just live with those things being the only equipment I can use to cook. Any ideas?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

http://www.gradunion.cam.ac.uk/info/kfc.html

This is the closest definition that I could find:

Quote:

A gyp room is the traditional Cambridge term for a food-preparation facility within a college. It dates back to the times when students would usually eat in college dining halls, and even nowadays some college accommodation provides little more than the essentials to make a cup of tea or a sandwich - a sink, a work surface, somewhere to plug a kettle in and maybe a fridge and a gas ring. Some college accommodation (especially for undergraduates) still only has these basic facilities, while other college accommodation has more fully equipped kitchens with freezers, ovens etc. The distinction between "gyp room" and "kitchen" is pretty vague; if anything a kitchen may be slightly better equipped.

There's nowhere I can't reach.