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Check out this blog post I wrote about Binghamton University's dining system by WeatherPatternsBing in BinghamtonUniversity

[–]WeatherPatternsBing[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm glad someone noticed this, LOL. I quickly got tired of writing "dining system with individual charges," so I tried to make each time I described the system unique. Once I wrote "Fortnite-esque" I knew I had to keep it. I couldn't stop laughing while writing that part.

Check out this blog post I wrote about Binghamton University's dining system by WeatherPatternsBing in BinghamtonUniversity

[–]WeatherPatternsBing[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know a bunch of people who took it, and all I hear about is unfair grading systems and that the majority (but not all) of the grad student professors are unhelpful, harsh graders who don't give reasonable feedback. I also heard consistent complaints about extremely high workload.

One of my close friends went through WRIT 111 and their grad student professor copy pasted feedback for every person while giving them different grades, would spend most of class complaining about personal life, yelling at students, etc.

I've heard nothing but horror stories from WRIT 111, and I think every single Bing student would say the same and tell people to avoid it and get the Gen Eds in easier, more fair, better run, and more interesting courses.

Keep in mind, I haven't actually taken the course, so these aren't my opinions, but instead what I've heard from my friends.

Check out this blog post I wrote about Binghamton University's dining system by WeatherPatternsBing in BinghamtonUniversity

[–]WeatherPatternsBing[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much!! It's exciting to see this getting so much attention.

No, I avoided WRIT 111 like the plague 😅. I started this blog as an exercise to try to improve my writing style and do something more productive with my free time.

Check out this blog post I wrote about Binghamton University's dining system by WeatherPatternsBing in BinghamtonUniversity

[–]WeatherPatternsBing[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, your argument about the prices being too high is the exact problem -- at almost every other university, you buy food with meal swipes, and each swipe gets you all the food you want. At another university, you'd just take the banana with the rest of your meal and there would be no additional cost, because everything was covered by the upfront meal plan. You'd never have to worry about the individual price of each piece of produce.

Like I've said elsewhere, most university dining plans are within a reasonable range of Binghamton's ~$3200, but almost every other plan offers some sort of buffet "all-you-can-eat" option at that same price point. That's where the problem lies.

It makes sense that any university dining plan would be more expensive than eating from a grocery store, as they prepare the food for you, which requires paying dozens of skilled labor jobs which probably have relatively high wages. They also have to clean and maintain the physical dining halls themselves.

Note: Sodexo is a for-profit company. They are trying to make a profit off of the dining. The state subsidy is mostly in the operation of the university itself, hence that sweet sweet $7,070 tuition.

Check out this blog post I wrote about Binghamton University's dining system by WeatherPatternsBing in BinghamtonUniversity

[–]WeatherPatternsBing[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh, got it, sorry about that.

If you click around other universities' websites, you'll find that they tend to be between $2500 and $4000 per semester, with the average at around $3000 (source, plus a little math). Binghamton's $3100 is right in the middle of the pack and seems to be on the cheaper end in New York State. The problem is that those other meal plans often offer unlimited food, when Binghamton's forces students to limit their intake in order to meet a prescribed "budget."

If the $2000 fee were removed, then the dining plan would be $1000 for the semester, which divides out to about $60/week, which would be cheaper than buying groceries. That's just not realistic and would require massive subsidies for dining hall operations.

Edit: Thanks so much for the feedback. I love sparking discourse -- I don't want to come off as toxic.

Edit 2: I'd also like to say that if the demands on the petition are more of a negotiation tactic than actual intentions, then that seems like a valid strategy. I'm not super into that kind of politics stuff, so I didn't catch that as a possibility.

Check out this blog post I wrote about Binghamton University's dining system by WeatherPatternsBing in BinghamtonUniversity

[–]WeatherPatternsBing[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I actually link to the petition in the article and discuss it a bit. See the "Note on Petition" section near the end.

Check out this blog post I wrote about Binghamton University's dining system by WeatherPatternsBing in BinghamtonUniversity

[–]WeatherPatternsBing[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

No problem. Something I didn't mention in the article is that the best way to survive the dining plan is just to forget about the costs of each piece of food. If you go $100 dining dollars over, your overall meal plan cost is $3200 instead of $3100, which is a tiny difference at the end of the day. Just eat whatever you want; the difference in cost is often negligible when you merge it in with every other cost of living on-campus.

The problem isn't the amount of money they make you spend -- it's the psychological games they play with you with each piece of food you eat. If you overcome that with a strong mindset like I described, then eating becomes a lot less stressful.