By Jacob Peller, Staff Writer

Published Sep. 3, 2014

Now that everyone has settled into college life, you may be beginning to notice that some of the things around campus have been losing quality quite rapidly, including the food.

It seems that as the parents and beneficiaries of the school have left the premises, we no longer need to give that 110 percent we’ve gotten used to when it comes to dining on campus.

Let’s be honest, the cafeteria has always been mediocre when it comes to its food; it’s simply the price that needs to be paid for serving thousands of rowdy college kids on a daily basis.

And before anyone thinks that I’m bashing any one of the fine campus-dining workers, let me be clear that they must have a hell of a time dealing with all of us.

Not to mention the fact that there are many wonderful people who make the cafeteria tolerable, namely Mrs. Brenda, who had her own article in our issue last week.

For the most part, the cafeteria had been doing a mediocre job when it comes to their management of food production, distribution and seating areas that are designed to create a balanced and flowing environment for students.

Or, at least it was, until the terrible new design.

There are few things in life that get me more riled up than pointless and ugly designs.

I’m all for an aesthetically pleasing designs that look pretty and lovely; I just want them to be functional, too.

The new circular style may look nice, but it just doesn’t make the cafeteria-going experience any easier for me.

For example, the famous M.C. Escher painting, “Relativity” is a very gorgeous piece of artwork depicting forced perspectives through the use of stairs and shading.

Anyone who looks at this painting can agree that it has a complexity that is visually pleasing and even inspiring.

But imagine if this is how we were going to design all of our stairwells under this rather “different” form from this point onward.

Frankly, it wouldn’t make any sense at all.

Simply put, it doesn’t matter if something is nice to look at if it adds unneeded complexity to everyday living.

College life as a whole falls more under functionality than fancy design.  For instance, we may have a couple of shiny newer buildings, like the School of Education and MHRA, but it’s not like we built anything just to be looked at; these strcutures have a purpose and a reason for being there.

This new stylistic choice for the cafeteria, however, does nothing of the sort.

Its centralized style means that you can find everything in one place, which implies that it should be easier for students to find what they’re looking for.

But, sadly, this isn’t the case.

The fatal flaw to the new design is simple: the food lines aren’t following the circles.

If you’ve ever been to the cafeteria at a busy time, then you’re well aware that the lines in front of each station won’t properly wrap around that station. In fact, due to the design they couldn’t even if they wanted to, because the stations are too close together to allow only a few people to follow the curve of the stations at a time.

Instead, the lines jut out into the middle of the space and create a wall of students waiting for their meals.

Now, it should be noted, just one line would be tolerable since you could easily walk around or push through to get to the front.

Yet, when you combine the pizza station, burger station, and all the side stations into the same space it becomes an utterly impenetrable wall of hungry and irritated students who are just as upset about not being fed in a timely manner as you are.

The really depressing aspect of this entire episode is that since renovations are finally done in the cafeteria, we’ll have to wait years before any major structural change to its layout will even be discussed.

Hopefully, this situation will become more tolerable and eventually be solved by our administration.  Although, I can’t say that I’d count on it.