Okay, I decided to just make this a two-parter. It worked for Quantum of Solace, right?
Meal plans always seem to be the most confusing to incoming students, but after you’ve used it for a week, there isn’t much more to learn about it. The only details I haven’t figured out are some of the secret meal exchanges (there’s probably a way to get coffee, a bagel, and some fruit for a meal, I’m just not a morning person). Ultimately the meal plan boils down to two halves: meals and dining debit dollars.
The debit dollars are something everyone is probably pretty familiar with. They act about the same as a gift debit card, or a bank’s ATM card would. If you want to buy something, the cashier just scans the total off of your ID card. And that’s about it. Really, I’m not joking, there isn’t anything else to it. Any dining location on campus will accept your debit dollars, as well as cash.
Meals are I little more complex, but they’re easy to figure out if you have a really good memory. In elementary school, we had meal tickets, and we would hand these in at the cafeteria in exchange for lunch. That’s how the meals off of a meal plan work, depending on where you spend them. At any cafeteria style location, like Kleiner Marketplace, FUEL, or River Landing, spending one meal will let you pick any combination of entrée, side, or drink, with a couple variations. Check the dining website for a list of different meal combos. Your other option is to spend your meals at Fresh Foods Company, which is a buffet style dining hall. So you spend a meal up front and can just go nuts (figuratively speaking).
We offer three different standard meal plans: 7 meals/week with $575 in debit, 14 meals/week with $275 in debit, and 21 meals/week plus $175. We do have a couple other meal plan options available, but these are the usual three. One last note to make, the meals on these three will not roll over from week to week, so if any of you wind up on one of my tours, I might suggest to you that the 14 meal plan is the most flexible, but whatever floats your boat. Say something if you’ve got questions,
-Kyle
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Dining Options
Hello everyone, it’s been a little while since my last post. This time though I’m going to just cut through all the formalities: I didn’t have lunch today. So since food is on my mind that means that today’s topic for you lucky readers is campus dining. As a quick note, this entry presupposes some familiarity with the meal plan, so if you aren’t familiar, check out the dining web site. Alternatively, you could just wait a couple months; someone will probably write something about it at some point.
If one word describes GVSU’s dining it’s “variety.” There are a lot of choices on campus, but as of right now, there are three main dining halls: Kleiner Marketplace, River Landing, and the Commons.
River Landing is located in the basement of the Kirkhoff Center (on the south end of campus), and has several university restaurants as well as a Subway. It’s more or less set up like a food court would be, and is a cafeteria style hall, meaning that you pick and choose items. To find out what items mix and match, try checking out the dining web site. Kleiner Marketplace is also cafeteria style and has similar restaurants. As a structure, Kleiner is built around convenience; it’s right in the middle of freshman housing, and not only does it include the Marketplace, but also the C-Store convenience shop and a Java City coffee bar, both of which stay open 24/7. Finally, we have the Commons, which houses Fresh Foods Company and the Lower Commons, (also called FUEL). The Lower Commons is very similar to both River Landing and Kleiner, in that it’s cafeteria style and has a mix of different locations.
Fresh Foods Company is our last main dining hall, and even though it’s probably bad writing structure, I gave it a new paragraph, because it will likely take that much space. It is vastly different from any other dining hall, because it has a dynamic menu and is buffet style dining. Spending a meal up front is your pass through the door and then what you eat is your own business. There are five main locations within Fresh Foods, and each changes its menu every meal period. The hours are also very accommodating, as Fresh Foods is open everyday from 7:30AM to 8:00PM.
But these are just the three main dining halls, there’s still quite a number of other locations. A bagel shop, coffee/smoothie bar, and three lobby shops are spread across campus. There are also options downtown, including a hall similar to Kleiner, a Starbuck’s Café, and a smoothie gazebo.
The wild card in all of this is the 2010 additions to campus dining. All I know about is that it will be on the south end of campus, and will include classrooms on the upstairs level. Beyond that, I know next to nothing about it. It could be an Olive Garden for all I know. Not really, but I’m just making a point here. It’s likely to be cafeteria style, and it will be new and shiny. Aside from that, your guess is as good as mine.
Remember that this is a pretty brief overview, if you want more info on dinng, their website is very thorough. So I'll leave most of you now, knowing that if anybody is reading this late at night they will probably walk downstairs and eat a midnight snack.
-Kyle
If one word describes GVSU’s dining it’s “variety.” There are a lot of choices on campus, but as of right now, there are three main dining halls: Kleiner Marketplace, River Landing, and the Commons.
River Landing is located in the basement of the Kirkhoff Center (on the south end of campus), and has several university restaurants as well as a Subway. It’s more or less set up like a food court would be, and is a cafeteria style hall, meaning that you pick and choose items. To find out what items mix and match, try checking out the dining web site. Kleiner Marketplace is also cafeteria style and has similar restaurants. As a structure, Kleiner is built around convenience; it’s right in the middle of freshman housing, and not only does it include the Marketplace, but also the C-Store convenience shop and a Java City coffee bar, both of which stay open 24/7. Finally, we have the Commons, which houses Fresh Foods Company and the Lower Commons, (also called FUEL). The Lower Commons is very similar to both River Landing and Kleiner, in that it’s cafeteria style and has a mix of different locations.
Fresh Foods Company is our last main dining hall, and even though it’s probably bad writing structure, I gave it a new paragraph, because it will likely take that much space. It is vastly different from any other dining hall, because it has a dynamic menu and is buffet style dining. Spending a meal up front is your pass through the door and then what you eat is your own business. There are five main locations within Fresh Foods, and each changes its menu every meal period. The hours are also very accommodating, as Fresh Foods is open everyday from 7:30AM to 8:00PM.
But these are just the three main dining halls, there’s still quite a number of other locations. A bagel shop, coffee/smoothie bar, and three lobby shops are spread across campus. There are also options downtown, including a hall similar to Kleiner, a Starbuck’s Café, and a smoothie gazebo.
The wild card in all of this is the 2010 additions to campus dining. All I know about is that it will be on the south end of campus, and will include classrooms on the upstairs level. Beyond that, I know next to nothing about it. It could be an Olive Garden for all I know. Not really, but I’m just making a point here. It’s likely to be cafeteria style, and it will be new and shiny. Aside from that, your guess is as good as mine.
Remember that this is a pretty brief overview, if you want more info on dinng, their website is very thorough. So I'll leave most of you now, knowing that if anybody is reading this late at night they will probably walk downstairs and eat a midnight snack.
-Kyle
Friday, June 5, 2009
Watching Grass Grow and Paint Dry
As the title would imply, not a whole lot is going on for me right now. While the campus is still busy with classes and summertime activities, I’m not actually doing any of those things. While I still get a chance to exercise on campus, eat up here, and earn some “Benjamins” (read: “Washingtons”), that’s about it for me. On the bright side, it’s finally not May, which I guess is only a bright side if you’re an aging enthusiast. Which I’m not. The weather’s nice though, which makes tours more enjoyable.
So since I don’t have anything to talk about, and can’t think of any GVSU related topics, I wanted to take this chance to ask all of you guys what you’re doing this Summer. I answered my first blog question earlier, so I’m pretty pumped about being informative on stuff that I'm basically paid to know or find out. Are any of the readers planning on visiting us in the near future, or coming up for orientation? Even if you guys want to fill us in on stuff unrelated to college visits, whether it's vacation plans or news on the job front (although arguably "lack of news" is more appropriate). As always, the floor's pretty much wide open to any questions, it's just that right now I'm really bored and want some insight as to what's going on for all of those who are reading this.
-Kyle
So since I don’t have anything to talk about, and can’t think of any GVSU related topics, I wanted to take this chance to ask all of you guys what you’re doing this Summer. I answered my first blog question earlier, so I’m pretty pumped about being informative on stuff that I'm basically paid to know or find out. Are any of the readers planning on visiting us in the near future, or coming up for orientation? Even if you guys want to fill us in on stuff unrelated to college visits, whether it's vacation plans or news on the job front (although arguably "lack of news" is more appropriate). As always, the floor's pretty much wide open to any questions, it's just that right now I'm really bored and want some insight as to what's going on for all of those who are reading this.
-Kyle
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