“I wish I could swipe my Carolina card as many times as I wanted.” This is a popular phrase among many USC freshmen.
A big complaint that students have is that they aren’t able to swipe their Carolina Cards to use their meal plans to get something sweet at Marble Slab after they’ve eaten dinner at Russell House. If other schools like UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State are able to swipe their cards multiple times a day, then why is our plan arranged this way? The number of meals per week arranges the different meal plan options for freshmen at USC. The options are 21 (which usually go to waste because almost no one is willing to walk to Russell House three times a day to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner), 16 , 14 or the small amount of 10.
Not only are students only able to swipe their cards just three times a day, it has to be within a certain time period and students can only spend a certain amount for each meal. Breakfast is $5.04, lunch is $6.33 and dinner is $6.76… and if you go over those amounts, you have to use Carolina Cash, Bonus Bucks or money from your own wallet. Breakfast runs from 7:00-10:59 a.m., lunch is 11:00 a.m.- 3:59 p.m. and dinner is from 4:00 p.m.-3:00 a.m. Let’s say a student eats breakfast one morning but is either working, studying or in class until around 3:30 and doesn’t get to grab food until 4:00 p.m. The student no longer gets to use their meal plan until the next day because he/she has already swiped during dinner time, even though they’ve only eaten two meals that day. A lot of times our meal plan system is very inconvenient to many students who are extremely busy throughout their day. Also, unlike other schools, where you can use your meal plan to pay for your friends and family (who come to visit the campus) and yourself, you aren’t able to pay for them because you are only able to swipe your card once within a certain time frame.
Carolina Dining Services could very well have set up our meal plan this way to regulate good eating habits, to regulate the amount of food they make or to limit their dining services only to USC students. But with that being said, students should be able to eat when they would like. This would help them take responsibility for their own eating habits and customize their own schedule of when they are able to eat and not have to work around the hours of the meal plan.