Ah, dining halls. The hallmark of the American college experience. As a foodie, I love the idea of the dining hall. But as a nerd, I’m always looking for optimization, and I don’t think USC’s dining hall experience is entirely optimized. 

Specifically, there are always some dishes that are instant hits, others go virtually untouched — or worse, touched but uneaten and promptly thrown away. 

Similarly, my dining hall conversations always reach the topic of improvements: “The pasta station could use more sauce options,” “One tostada after 15 minutes of waiting in line is not enough” or “Why haven’t we seen the soft serve ‘swirl’ option since Welcome Week?” And the list goes on.

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Interestingly, each dining hall table has a little QR code to scan to give feedback in an online form. The form consists of six multiple-choice questions, each with a five-point Likert scale ranging either from “far above average” to “far below average” or “extremely satisfied” to “extremely dissatisfied.” 

The questions ask about the visual appeal of the food, food stock levels, staff attentiveness and friendliness, food quality, menu variety and dining hall cleanliness. The form concludes with a box to share “any comments, suggestions or requests.” 

This is an excellent idea, but I still see room for optimization. First, every multiple-choice question has to be answered before the form can be submitted, which could result in inaccurate data from random selections. The questions are also misguided in their scope. Simply asking about our “satisfaction with the quality of the food (taste, texture, aroma, etc.)” seems too broad, whereas qualities like visual appeal feel quite niche. 

A solution could be to completely revamp the form. A list with every menu item for that day and the option to give each item you tried a rating from 1 to 5 stars would give dining hall staff insight into which items are most popular and how much of each item to stock. 

I do recognize the potential flaws with this plan. Who would be in charge of this new form? It would have to be updated several times a day — each time the menu changes — so it would likely have to be automated. Someone would also have to process the user input and filter it in some way that creates usable data for dining hall staff. 

And of course, the biggest issue: no one responds to optional forms.

To best gauge students’ dining hall experiences, their opinions should be gathered as proactive input rather than as retroactive feedback. The best way for the University to do this is by forming a dining hall student advisory group, which interested students could apply for.

A dining hall student advisory group could share ideas to improve the dining hall experience and taste dishes before they’re prepared en masse. Each member could be assigned certain items to taste each day, and those assigned to the same items could collaborate on a report of their experience with the items. 

Menu assemblers could then see how dishes could be improved and how much of each dish should be prepared. Additionally, the group could have a data team backing up the advisory group’s findings with quantitative evidence. They could poll peers directly on everything from dietary restrictions to portion sizes. 

Combined with the regular input from other advisory group team members, this will hopefully streamline the allocation of resources and minimize food waste, all while improving the student dining hall experience.  

As it is, I see the dining halls as untapped potential. If there are two things everyone at USC seems to like, it’s food and opinions, and right now, most opinions on the dining halls are neutral at best. Especially given the price of food around campus, I think effort invested in dining hall improvement would be greatly appreciated and would significantly benefit the University. 

An advisory group would give students agency, and as evidenced by the number of RSOs on campus, there are always students at USC willing to rise to leadership positions. I don’t think this proposal is entirely unreasonable. But don’t take my word for it. Go to the dining halls and try to eat a meal without a single opinion on how the experience could be improved. If it’s tricky, maybe you should apply for the advisory group.