Student creates application to catalogue dining options

Students with a meal plan can find  out where to eat their next meal on-campus and what will be served with a few taps on their smartphone.

Fitz Tepper, a freshman majoring in business administration, created the Eat at USC app, which lists all of the locations to eat on campus, including each venue’s location and some items on its menu. The app was launched earlier this month.

Tepper was the application came out of his necessity for finding food on-campus.

“It really kind of started as something that I needed,” Tepper said. “It was a way of solving my own problem.”

Since its launch, the app has been downloaded more than 350 times, Tepper said. Though information about where food venues are and what they serve each day was already available on the USC Hospitality website, even USC Hospitality agrees that the information is not convenient for students on the go.

USC Hospitality associate director of special events, sales & marketing Erika Chesley said seeing Tepper’s application came as a surprise to USC Hospitality because it was already planning to develop its own application for USC venues.

“It actually was, in a way, kind of comical because, coincidentally, we were going to name our application ‘Eat at USC,’” Chesley said.

Chesley, who downloaded the app on her iPhone, said she appreciates Tepper’s work on the application.

“We’re actually really grateful for him for having done this because it just proves our point, which is that it’s the road we want to go down,” Chesley said. “He did a great job with the information that is there and he was very accurate.”

Chesley said USC Hospitality will continue the development of their own application as part of their multiphased project to incorporate technology. The department hopes to introduce the application to incoming freshmen at summer orientation.

Students have responded favorably to the new application. Nicholas Stillman, a freshman majoring in international relations global business, said the application is especially helpful for accessing dining hall menus.

“It’s extremely user-friendly,” Stillman said. “As a freshman, I think the menus for the dining halls are great. I check the menu every single day.”

Chesley echoed Rolwes’ sentiments, saying that she looks forward to making USC Hospitality’s information more easily accessible.

“We all live by our phones these days,” Chesley said. “So it just makes sense to have an application where the information will be readily available to our students, staff, faculty and also to visitors of the university.”