AP: Hi, can I get a cheese burger meal exchange?
ES: Those are a lot of student’s famous last words for the night, as they crawl back to their dorms with some chicken tenders.
AP: Whether you spend your meal exchanges on the late night trips to Fran’s or Lisa’s, or grab a sandwich at Wildcat Deli for lunch, at one point almost every student at Northwestern has gotten one.
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ES: This school year, Northwestern Dining made a change to meal exchanges. You can now upgrade many of the meals with your dining dollars.
ES: Some of the options include paying two dollars for two cookies, upgrading your Dasani water to a Coke Product and doubling up on hamburger patties. At Buen Dia in Norris, you can use $3 dollars to upgrade your standard taco or quesadilla meal exchange to a burrito or bowl. Somebody call Chipotle, because that sounds like a deal to me.
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AP: But wait – do students know about these upgrades? Do students use them?
ES: We talked to students who grabbed a bite for lunch and dinner.
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ES: Bienen student Ray Faiella is a sophomore, so he has experienced the change in NU Dining’s meal exchange rules. He admitted that the change was not on his radar.
[Ray Faiella] Honestly I haven’t even really looked much at the upgrades. I just get what I get.
ES: Plus Faiella said that he thinks there are better things to spend his dining dollars on.
[RF] I have not used any of the upgrades just because they’re like extra money and I just prefer to use that on like Starbucks.
ES: Faiella’s mindset is also focused on how upgrading is a gateway into doing it again and again once you do it the first time.
[RF] I just think about if I were to like the upgrade and then I just have to keep doing it weekly. So then my dining dollars would just be gone.
AP: Similar to Faiella, Weinberg freshman Tolu Onitilo said that she thinks some of the upgrades that she knows of are not worth it.
[TOLU ONITILO] Usually the upgrades are just not necessary.They’re not desirable to upgrade. Specifically at Lisa’s I know it’s like, pay $2 more to switch from Dasani to smart water.
AP: Meanwhile, some students think some upgrades are better than others.
ES: We caught Mccormick Freshman Ryan Liu in Norris University Center eating a cheeseburger meal exchange. He said that –
[RYAN LIU] Right now sitting in front of 847 Burger, I would definitely consider getting double patties. Two bucks for an extra patty is a pretty good price, right?
AP: But Liu said he hasn’t cashed in the dining dollars for that extra patty yet. Maybe now he will.
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AP: When asking students what their favorite meal exchange was – one answer stuck out.
[TO] Probably Mod Pizza.
[RL] Definitely Mod Pizza.
[RF] Definitely Mod but the line’s way too long sometimes.
ES: But Mod Pizza in Norris University Center does not offer similar upgrades to places like Wildcat Deli or Buen Dia.
ES: While we talked to a lot of people that have not used them, what about the people that do?
AP: Weinberg freshman Tazwaar Ahmed upgraded his Fran’s chicken tenders meal exchange to include loaded fries. The upgrade costs $3.
[Tazwaar Ahmed] I was pretty happy with it. I knew me and my friends were gonna share a bit of the food so I just thought we could get more fries for just three bucks.
ES: While Ahmed thought more fries was a good investment, not all upgrades are worth it, especially when it comes to the $1 ones.
[TA] That’s just upgrading your water to a smart water and I wouldn’t pay a dollar for that.
AP: Most of the time though, Ahmed says he chooses not to upgrade his meal exchanges.
[TA] I don’t usually need that much food.
AP: While it seems that a lot of students do not know much about the meal exchange upgrades or frankly, want to upgrade their meals, hopefully you learned a little bit more about the options you have as a student at Northwestern.
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From WNUR News, I’m Erica Schmitt
And I’m Anavi Prakash.
