Dining Commons

Our last stop on the tour is our Dining Commons! Us students call it the DC and this is where your ID really comes in handy. When you enter as a first-year student, you have to get a 19-meal plan which means you have nineteen meals that week. After your first semester, you can choose between a nineteen, fourteen, or ten-meal plan and as a commuter student, you can either choose to pay for five-meal plan or no meal plan at all. When you get to the DC, you'll see someone at the front desk and they swipe your card. One swipe equals one meal. So if you swipe once that day but stay for three hours in the DC, what we call "DC-chilling" you can eat as much as you want during those three hours - like a buffet. A lot of people DC-chill and save their swipes for the weekend but each Sunday you start fresh.

This next part may be kind of confusing so I'll try to go over everything: When you buy your meal plan, you get $150 Sodexo bucks which is kind of like free-money from our school. You can use Sodexo at any of the other places to eat on campus: Dunks, Subway, Quixotes, the Grill, the Marketplace, Pandini's, the Garden Cafe (located in Horace Mann) and the Perch. Unfortunately, these don't roll over into the following semester but Owl Bucks does.

Now Owl Bucks is money that either you, your parents, grandparents, whomever, can put on your card. Owl Bucks is kind of like a debit card where you can put as little or as much as you like. With Owl Bucks you can use at any of the places I already listed but you can also use it for laundry, vending machines, and there are a ton of places in Westfield that accept it, too! To name a few: Domino's Pizza, Friendly's, Big Y, etc. I love Owl Bucks because if I'm ever low on money for laundry, I can simply log on and add money!

Pandini's is another eatery on campus that is actually inside the DC. Pandini's is open later than the DC, until midnight, so when the DC is closed, you can never go hungry. Pandini's has pizza, salads, and four meal deals a day. A meal deal is a meal that instead of costing money, you can actually use a meal swipe. Super convenient when you're low on cash and don't feel like eating at the DC.

After the DC is closed, the Perch becomes open as well. The Perch is right next to Pandini's, which was really confusing to me at first because there is no sign saying, "This is the Perch" so it took me about a month to find out where it was. They are open even later than Pandini's and I am in love with the Perch. 95% because it has mozzarella sticks and 5% because it's open until about 1-2am. They have wings, mozzarella sticks, burgers, hot dogs, chicken fingers, etc. If you're ever up late and are craving food, hit up the Perch. You'll most likely see me there munching on motz sticks and a smoothie at one o'clock in the morning. You may think I'm kidding...I'm not.

- Amanda