"I can't let the man continue with fuzzy math."
At the risk of frustrating George W. Bush (and Bon Appétit Management Company), I'm going to do some math. Now, I'm an AMST major, so forgive me if any of this is wrong. Or attack it as "fuzzy math," like our prez did when Al Gore started bustin' out the numbers in one of the 2000 presidential debates.
From the day classes start to the day housing closes, and not counting spring break, we will be at Wesleyan 99 days next semester. Now, I don't know about you, but I like to eat while I'm at Wesleyan. Everyday while I'm at Wesleyan. And I think two meals a day is generally the minimum. Let's see what happens when we perform some math:
Juniors and seniors, if we want to eat even two good meals a day, it looks like we're out of luck. Forget snacks. Forget the occasional run to Weshop. Forget Late Night.
But wait! Before you post an angry anonymous comment, let me ask you something, because I don't know the answer: what are our options? If we can't eat two meals at The Marketplace everyday, where can we eat? I find that WesWings and Red & Black are generally just as expensive for an actual meal (if not more so), but is The Café at Usdan cheaper? And how will Summerfields work?
From Bon Appetit's fancy little pamphlet, "The Power of the Spoon":
Bon Appétit is pleased to empower the holder of this Spoon with the ability to take any action necessary to ensure that the quality of our food services meets and exceeds the highest standards.What good are food standards if you can't afford the food? Maybe instead of giving out 3,000 wooden spoons, Bon Appétit should've given us a few points back?
I'm eager to hear your thoughts.
35 comments:
Yeah when Delmar explained this at the WSA meeting, he didn't really have any answer when this concern was brought up.
The way I see it working is that you buy groceries and cook for yourself (which is much more cost efficient), and don't eat on campus for every meal. What happens if you have limited access to a kitchen, no refrigerator, and/or can't afford to eat off campus all that much? Yeah, you might be screwed which, considering that Wesleyan clearly wants a residential campus where very few students live in off-campus housing and aren't on the meal plan, is kinda a problem.
First, let me say that you're right about the spoons. But aside from that, student complaints about the number of points they get for the semester are unfounded. BA and Dean Rick have a choice in regards to how they allocate points. They could either overestimate a student's point needs, thus assuring that every student can eat 2 meals a day at BA, or they can purposely underchage students.
Students always have the option of buying more points, but they can't redeem their points for cash. Thus, they are actually giving students more flexibility by erring on the side of too few points as opposed to too many. If they had added more points to the plan(at a greater cost to students,) they'd be overcharging students for the services BA delivered, which is actually a worse situation for students.
i have all points and this semester I could afford to eat often at usdan because my lunches were generally under $7.50. also, all you can eat will waste so much food.
justin, you are a fucking terrible blogger. im getting tired of your nonsense tags and your shirtlessness. kill yourself.
Not that I think that suicide claims are ever warranted, but I think a ball-less asshole who bashes people anonymously is closer to deserving such a threat.
anonymouse that's really an intense statement.
But the fact is, I grew up being told every day to eat THREE meals a day. In fact, no matter how you spin it, that is not possible on the current meal plan. I came in to freshman year skinny as a fucking twig and i've LOST 5 POUNDS since I've been here. I don't have a kitchen, i have to walk two blocks just to use an oven (which yeah isn't that bad except when there is a foot of snow on the ground or its raining or its freezing).
Yeah Americans overeat. That's the damn truth. But this is fucking ridiculous. We go to a private university. We are stuck up. Get over it. If I'm pretentious because I want to fill my belly every day, then so be it.
this is a really good entry. to bradley: i think that paying for extra points is a bit excessive when we pay $11,512 for room and board.
Basically this whole problem would be solved if we weren't required to have meal plans. Then I could actually cook for myself without spending $37 at Weshop on the ingredients for one meal for myself.
Are you serious, is this really that difficult?
Cook your own food.
Imagine yourself one, two, three, four years from now. No *way* are you going to be eating out for every meal on your $25K entry level salary. Seriously, learn to cook. It's cheaper, and someday it might help you get laid.
Keep in mind, if you will, that many of our peer schools (eg middlebury) allow you to eat as much as you want, at any meal. no points, just the up front cost for the dining plan, and then eat.
I'd love to cook for myself, but, oh wait, I don't have a kitchen. Hungry sophs are sort of out of luck.
this is for juniors and seniors without meals, who are expected to cook some of the time. so cook and stop drinking all those expensive drinks and you'll be fine. also grab and go will be expanded next semester and you will be able to get cheaper options there.
10:04PM - Justin is one of the nicest people that I met at Wes (even though it's been a few years since I've seen him). If you don't like his blogs, don't read them.
Also, I only wish I could be seeing him without his shirt. Geez, you should consider yourself lucky!
Hi, I'm in Nic 7; don't talk to me about cooking. French hall stole our kitchen. Yeah, cooking would be great, except when you have something downtown at 6, and something on campus at 7. Or when you kinda want that extra 30 minutes of sleep. Or when you are, as has been said, paying 11,000 or so dollars for room board.
Deciding when and what to eat should not be an complex, calculated process. If one burger or two slices of pizza count as I meal, then I eat about 5 meals idea, 'cause I'm physically active, and make calories go byebye like crazy.
I really don't care about having prepared-from-scratch cornish game hens, or roasted spelt with cranberries (yes; that did happen once). I want food that is reasonably tasty, and that I can eat enough of without being having to choose between being hungry or shelling out 50 dollars at the end of the semester
This has always been the case, even with Aramark, I'm a little confused about why this is an issue all of a sudden. Also, soup is 2.99, and delicious.
Yeah, having access to a kitchen saves you a lot of points. I eat every meal in my apartment (and I eat a pretty decent amount, 3 meals daily), and I've still got about 280 points left over for this semester. For me, the meal plan has worked better each additional year, starting with a crappy experience freshman year.
If you want to eat at Usdan every day, don't get an all points plan.
Asking for lower quality food at cheaper prices makes a lot of sense to me, since we're college kids and can live with cheap, crappy food, but asking for more points with the same quality is just asking BA to raise prices on us. Which does no good for kids who are running out of points (because they could have bought more points anyway), but is real bad for those of us who have extras. See Bradley's point. That being said, it's possible it would make sense to increase the discount going to financial aid kids who want to buy more points if lots of kids are running out.
There are four different kinds of meal plans, but not four different kinds of Wesleyan students.
You shouldn't have to be more flexible in your schedule to accommodate your meal plan. You should be able to pick a meal plan that can accommodate your schedule.
And with only four different plans, you can't do that. Why can't we just be told how much x meals per week cost, be told how much y points per semester cost, pick how many of each we want and pay accordingly? None of this "0, 5 or 8 meals but nothing in between" nonsense.
Justin, speaking of nonsense, stop with the tags. Seriously.
I think most anything that can be said, has at this point. Just one more thing to throw in there. In the pamphlet that was sent out detailing the various meal plan options, they mentioned that you really needed the "premium" plan if you were going to eat breakfast every day.
The three base-price meal plans are built around the assumption that you'll not be using your meal plan for breakfast. So basically, if you're on the regular meal plan, they expect you to be eating cereal in your room most mornings.
I've added points every semester I've been at Wesleyan. About 300. And I'm a senior.
I agree with the pretentious prick, I'm hungry and I want to eat and I see no reason why people can't cook and clean up for me. I'm busy. And I pay for it. Almost $ 12,000.
Hey Justin - I personally like your silly tags. Keep it up. :)
justin, don't listen to the last post. ur tags suck, r not interesting, and just in generally tend to inspire feelings of hatred towards u.
From what I see here, there exists a lot of concern over the realities of the meal plan, and our ability to eat healthily and fulfillingly while still remaining within the bounds that the meal plan establishes for us.
While Bradley makes an interesting and valid point about overcharging students, others (including myself) believe that a meal plan should cover all the meals the average student will need over the course of a semester—not covering 80% and then making us pay an additional fee to buy the food that our original 12 G's should've paid for in the first place.
Lack of available or convenient facilities is another problem that hampers our ability to cook for ourselves; and even then, with Weshop prices so expensive, and so many ingredients necessary to prepare and cook a healthy meal, at least a few comments here seem to argue that cooking for oneself often isn't a viable solution, either. Though there are certainly reports to the contrary.
One poster mentioned that options at The Café ("grab and go") will be expanded next semester. I think that's a very important component of Bon Appétit's plan to roll out all-you-can-eat lunch. Hopefully the prices are more manageable, and the food is well-portioned.
It would seem to me that much more discussion is needed between Bon Appétit, students, the WSA, and all other relevant parties. There are certainly ways to remain within the balance of points and still eat two (maybe three?) meals a day, but the extent to which the means to do that are available to all students needs to be discussed.
As for the Anonymous comments that were nice, thanks. As for the previous one; well, I think if you talked to me, you'd see I'm a lot more accepting than those who would hate me based on my writing "I want to like Bon Appétit but if they make me starve it'll be considerably more difficult." :-P
Bedtime!
Maybe you just don't know what tags are.
If I read something here about Bon Appetit and want to find other posts about Bon Appetit, I'd click the "Bon Appetit" tag.
The fact that there is no such tag to click on now is not my main complaint. I'm actually annoyed by the fact that in a month, if someone is similarly looking for posts about Bon Appetit, this one will not show up, even though it should.
Keep your joke tags, but use relevant ones as well. It's your responsibility as a blogger to do so.
I wish I was asleep right now.
somebody revoke this kids privileges now
why are people so fucking catty at this school, get over yourselves, they're just fucking tags, jesus.
forget the tags, remember the shirt
Just in case you think these are all the same person, I haven't posted in this yet
"your responsibility as a blogger?"
Who the fuck are you to say they have any responsibilities?
To Anonymous posting at 7:20 AM:
I am actually quite aware of the intended purpose of tags.
I am also quite aware that few bloggers were using tags on Wesleying before I came back onto the scene. Since people weren't even tagging posts, the tags themselves were already of very limited functionality. (Note: the tagging feature was much more widely used when it was first added to Blogger. There was a continuous decline in its use on Wesleying, generally speaking.) This argument has already been argued here.
Please remember that there is a search function—it's the first thing at the top of the page. If you're looking for posts on Bon Appétit, type in "Bon Appétit". Pretty easy.
Nevertheless, you make one valid point. Tags do have the potential to be a useful feature—if and when more Wesleying bloggers begin to use them. To that effect, I will sprinkle in useful tags along with my silly ones. Thanks for the suggestion.
<3 rice and beans!
sooo then why is it that i have leftover points and am STILL getting fat??? i thought i was OVEReating...
You're probably eating crap instead of healthy stuff and not exercising.
A couple of comments:
I'd like to point out that I ate at the campus center for most of my meals last year, and.. I still ran out of points. This is definitely a problem, but not a new problem and not a BA-specific problem. Last year, you definitely couldn't have eaten at MoCon or Summerfields two meals a day for the entire semester if you had wanted to. Miraculously, a number of people seemed to still have points left at the end of the semester, and still do this year. I don't know how they do it... but I'd like to learn... (it probably involves buying less study snacks from Pi)
As for Justin and his tags, lighten up, guys. I mean, the original complaint that Kate made had a lot of legitimacy to it; naming has a lot of power, and thus naming things inappropriately or offensively is clearly problematic. But ever since that complaint, Justin clearly took what she said into account, and Justin's tags have clearly moved away from being possibly offensive and are just silly. They're not a big deal; get over it :) as for the "kill yourself" comment, wtf? Talk about offensive... Justin, please don't, thanks :)
Yeah, um, lots of times I buy snacks at Weshop. Did you ever buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter? Sometimes for lunch I'll do their bagel and coffee and a fruit combo for $4.50 or something. A hardboiled egg is .50
Then at all-you-care-to-eat-dinner, I make sure to load up on healthy stuff containing the nutrients my body needs. Fruits, vegetables, protiens, etc. And I take a fruit or two for a snack another time. Also, if you drink water at lunchtime instead of a $$$ drink, you save yourself money plus it's good for you.
I still have about 250 points.
everybody who can't shut up about his/her "lack" of points needs to find a fucking job
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