Written by: Tyler Dale
Imagine: it’s noon. You’ve just finished your 11A.M. class and you are starving. You rush to the cafeteria, and as soon as you scan your ID, you’re hit by a sea of people.
You can’t even see the food because of the ridiculous amount of people crammed into one space.
As you shove your way through the massive amoeba of sweat and flesh, trying desperately to come up for air, you realize that all of the plates are missing, so you redirect your course and improvise with a bowl.
You really want some of the delicious fettuccine that the caf so rarely serves, but the line is backed up out the door, so you know there’s no chance.
Eventually, you just settle for pizza, which is slightly has been rushed out to appease the mob, which you now find yourself a part of.
Once you finally manage to retrace your steps through the gauntlet and find a table that isn’t already over capacity, you realize that you just don’t have an appetite anymore, and so, you just leave the caf, more frustrated than satisfied, and hope you’ll fare better at dinnertime.
Isn’t that situation depressing?
Unfortunately, for Piedmont students, this has become the norm. The cafeteria is, frankly, way too crowded.
I’m not sure if it’s because everyone has the same class schedule this semester, or if we just gained a lot more freshmen than we lost seniors. Either way, something needs to be done to alleviate the situation.
I understand that the new student center, currently under construction, will rectify this by giving students another place to go at lunchtime, but its completion is a long way off, and this problem exists now.
The most immediate solution is to open the bottom floor of the caf.
This would essentially double the space and hopefully keep the top floor from becoming so overbearingly crowded, therefore saving students like me from overbearing, appetite-ruining frustration.
I realize that our hard-working cafeteria employees are currently short a few staff members, and that asking them to make expansions while short-staffed is simply unreasonable.
But as soon as that changes, I think it would be wise to expand the dining area below.
Not only will this cut down on waiting times and increase table vacancy, but it will also probably keep Piedmont students healthier as well, because overcrowding and malnourishment both lead to epidemics.
So Piedmont, help prevent the next bubonic plague; open up the bottom floor.