When I returned home for Fall Break my freshman year—after my longest stint away from home, about seven weeks—I didn’t realize how much I had missed home-cooked meals. Then my dad made steak for dinner.

I was sick for the rest of the night.

And I was sick after every meal that week.

Looking back, I realized that for the past seven weeks, I hadn’t eaten meat—like at all. I had picked up a cut or two in the Traditions line in the cafeteria, saw the pink color, tasted the raw, uncooked flesh, and eventually learned to stop trying. Basically, when I got to college, I had accidentally become a vegetarian, and returning home was a shock to my digestive system.

Now, since this experience, I have tried to make it a priority to eat some form of meat while I’m at school, but I think this demonstrates a larger issue facing students in their daily life.

I know I am not the first person to complain about the food here at Waynesburg University.

So, I don’t want to bore you with my daily laments about the lack of options, the nonsensical pricing or the complete disregard for quality. But, I will do it anyway.

I try to be understanding when it comes to Aladdin food services—they are feeding a lot of kids, and it is impossible to please everyone. I get it; no big deal. But one thing I just can’t wrap my head around: when is it ever okay to serve raw chicken to hundreds of students?

I get it; accidents happen, nobody is perfect. But that particular accident has occurred to me about once a week since I came to Waynesburg, and I’m just a little bit tired of the nausea. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask of food services to fully cook the food we are paying a lot of dollars for.

That brings me to my next point: the price. On average, one meal in Benedum Dining Hall costs about $11 for a 14-meal plan—I’d say that’s decent, if you take advantage of the buffet style. In that particular case, you can get as much food as you want/need for a relatively low price.

Now let’s talk about the Beehive.

For the same single $11 meal swipe, you get a comparably miniscule selection of food and you are only allowed about 3 items, with much smaller portions than what is allowed in the cafeteria.

This just does not make sense.

Not only that, but if you live in a dorm, as most students must, you don’t have a choice but to pay for a meal plan—it is in the university’s contract with Aladdin. While it may make fiscal sense for the university to partner with food services in this capacity, it simply isn’t fair to students, who now have to pay for food that many will not—or cannot—even eat. It completely takes away the students’ choice of how to spend a significant portion of their funds.

For the most part, I think Waynesburg University allocates our money very reasonably and transparently—and that is admirable, because not all universities are like this. But it all falls apart with this compulsory meal plan.