First off, I’m going to point out how great the dining centers actually are. While this article is about some ways to possibly make them better, they’re already pretty good.

There are many good things about the dining centers worth pointing out. I love how you can make your own food on a grill top with all the ingredients provided for you. I took advantage of that many times during my freshman year.

It’s also nice how they serve consistent food options. At West, you know you can get pizza whenever you want. At the Residence Dining Center (RDC), you know you can get a burger, grilled cheese or chicken patty almost any day. I am also a huge fan of the Bison Beanery at RDC. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Beanery, it’s basically like a Starbucks, but everything there is already paid for through your meal plan. That was one of my favorite morning places to go the second semester of freshman year. I would encourage anyone who likes coffee, hot chocolate, pastries, etc. to go check it out. I also used the sandwich bar, which you can find at any dining center, a lot.

Another convenient thing about the dining centers is the menu application you can download to see what’s on the menu. I didn’t know about this trait until halfway through my freshman year, and it changed everything. The app is called “ND Dining,” and it tells you what each dining center is serving that day. It even categorizes the food groups into breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. So, yes, it basically does all the work for you. I would highly recommend downloading the app to make your trip to the dining centers a lot smoother.

Now, there is one obvious way to improve the dining centers, and I think you can all agree with me on this one. Do you ever just sit there late on a Friday night and think: “Wow, I could really go for a meal right now.” The reason you’re possibly thinking about that may vary, but you know you’ve felt that way before. If you’re a college freshman, likely without a job, then ordering Domino’s for delivery probably isn’t a wise decision. That’s right, the dining centers need to be open later. This is particularly aimed for the weekends, given the fact that West and Union are both closed on the weekends and RDC is only open until 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. I remember times I would put Tupperware in my backpack and make a trip to the dining center before they closed on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. You can guess what I did with that. I had to, or else it was suffer the classic late night hunger that every college student goes through desperate measures to avoid. I understand that West is open late Monday through Thursday. It’s very convenient. However, the fact that RDC is only open until 7:30 p.m. on Saturday is crazy. Do they really expect students to not be hungry after that? Even on Friday the latest it’s open is 8 p.m. and Sunday until 8:30 p.m. They could stay open until 11 p.m. or something like that. It just doesn’t make sense why they would stay open later during the weekdays than on the weekends.

In addition, students pay lots of money to have a meal plan. Going to the dining centers offers many benefits, but it’s not cheap by any means. For a seven-day meal plan, you’re looking at over $2,300 per semester. For an entire school year, that brings it to roughly $4,650. I’m not going to break down the numbers in their entirety, but I can tell you right now that it’s not exactly a “bang for your buck.” By not being open late on the weekends, it takes away the potential that students have of making the meal plan worth it. Given the time it’s open, an average college student’s appetite and how much it costs, it’s almost impossible for a student to eat the amount they would need to eat to get their money’s worth.

Another small thing I would consider changing would be the amount of guest passes one is entitled to. For a seven-day, you get only seven guest passes for the whole year. It would be good for the dining centers’ sake to allow more guest passes. If you give someone who doesn’t have a meal plan a guest pass and they are really impressed, they may consider getting a meal plan in the future. They should make it seven per semester, at least. You could even argue around 10.

Don’t get it twisted: this is not a rant. I just feel a couple small changes would make the dining center experience better all around for everyone.