Simmons College Meal Plan
As graduation looms over my head the hunger becomes more and more real.
I mean this literally ...
I have run out of meals and points. I have either been using cash or using extra meals that friends have.
How did this happen?
Well I'll first tell you my schedule.
Close to every day I wake up between 7:30 and 8:30. I eat breakfast. SWIPE.
I go to academic campus do work until class. After class I eat lunch. SWIPE.
I have classes or work 3 days a week until 9:30PM. SWIPE.
Thats 3 meals a day. Technically you're supposed to eat 5 small meals a day. (Nutritionally speaking of course). The average person eats 3 meals a day.
The Simmons College meal plan is a complete and total disappointment. The options are as follows:
225 meals and 100 dining points per semester + 10 guest meals
185 meals and 150 dining points per semester + 10 guest meals
145 meals and 200 dining points per semester + 10 guest meals
A semester is 15 weeks. So giving Simmons the benefit of the doubt lets use the 225 meals per semester option. 225 divided by 15 is 15. There are 5 school days in the week, and 2 weekend days. With 15 available meals and a 7 day week this means that you are rationed roughly 2 meals per day.
You could see why I ran out so early.
I am someone who relies on the meal plan. I take 5 courses, have a work study job and until recently I also worked in the cafeteria. I don't have money being put into my account every week from my parents, I work hard, earn my money and don't intend to spend it going out to dinner and getting Starbucks every night.
Simmons Res Life (Who I emailed about this already) told me thats where the points come into play. The 100 points actually come into play at the coffee shop on campus. Where you can get an over priced, snack or drink. Simmons makes money off of this, I asked. Almost two dollars for awful weak TEA! 3 dollars and change for a 8 ounce POM juice. Upwards of 2-3 dollars for any snack bar they have. You can imagine how quickly during a stressful semester the points disappear. Even the days I just wanted ice water I was charged 25 cents for the cup.
Starbucks prices with subpar quality. Yet we all still go because it's so convenient.
When I emailed Res Life they suggested that I PURCHASE a supplemental meal plan for the rest of the semester. These started at around $80 and could go as high as $200.
I proceeded to tell them I'm not spending another cent.
Their Suggestion: Well next semester you should choose the plan that is for students who "rely heavily" on the meal plan.
Next semester? What about this semester? What about the two weeks I have left here?
You may be thinking well what did you expect?
It's not too complicated. I expected a school that I've been going to for the past four years, a school that boasts about community and kin ship, a school that continually asks ME, a senior, for donations -- to help me out. To give me something like 15 meals for the next 2 weeks to help me out so I don't have to buy so many myself. I expected the school I will some day (soon) be an alumni of to help me and not "redirect" my email to someone else, who didn't even respond. To not ask me for MORE money and tell me to switch my meal plan next semester.
The food will be thrown away anyways. Simmons wastes close to 70 lbs of food week according to the sustainability pamphlet that was going around a week or so ago.
How much would it have really hurt them to add 15 meals to my card? An institution that asks close to $50,000 dollars of me a year asked me for $80 more bucks to eat for the last two weeks of my semester.
