Since my first day of college at Drexel University, much has changed about the campus. Some of these changes were amazing and made life on campus better as a whole, whereas others were just okay or nothing to really write home about. Being that it’s the start of a new year, there are a few things that I would like to see added to Drexel’s campus during 2018.
First and foremost, I would really like to see a real grocery store added to Drexel’s campus. Now, I can admit that this is asking for a lot, but if it could be done then that would be a game changer for me and many other students. Currently, Old Nelson Food Company is the only real place to go for my cooking needs. CVS also serves a similar purpose, but it has even less options than Old Nelson. The Fresh Grocer is the only major grocery store within a reasonable distance, and while the walk isn’t that bad in my opinion, I know people who detest having to walk multiple blocks just to get a handful of items. Walking to The Fresh Grocer in the winter when it’s cold and snowing is also quite unpleasant, so it would be a dream come true if a grocery store were put on Drexel’s campus or somewhere near the campus during this year.
Another thing I would like to see this year is more diversity with the locations where meal swipes, as well as dining dollars and DragonDollars, can be used. There is a list of dining locations where a dragon card can be used to eat, and this list can be found through a simple Google search. To be fair, the list is quite lengthy, but there are a few places that are missing from the list, such as the Ramen Bar, Chipotle and Dunkin’ Donuts. I understand that there is probably some reason behind why certain locations are not included on the list, but it certainly does not make their absence any less apparent.
It would also be great if some of these dining locations had more flexibility when it comes to Drexel’s meal plan. One thing I quickly noticed during my freshmen year was that the majority of the places on the list only take Dragon Dollars. This was a bit of a problem because as a freshman the meal plan only came with meal swipes and dining dollars, DragonDollars had to be added on by my parents every so often. As a result of most places taking only Dragon Dollars, I ended up only using my meal swipes at the Urban Eatery because I did not care for the Handschumacher Dining Center all that much. As for the dining dollars, I mainly used them for Chick-Fil-a and not much else. This is of course not to say that there aren’t more places to use dining dollars, but I think it would make a lot of people happy if some of the more popular places like Shake Shack, Insomnia Cookies and Blaze Pizza accepted dining dollars. This way they could get the most out of their meal plans.
One last minor thing I’m expecting to be done sometime this year is the completion of the renovations being done to the section of Lancaster Walk behind Nesbitt Hall. Not having access to that part of the walkway has been more of an inconvenience than I had originally thought it would be. I’ll be surprised if it isn’t reopened sometime this year, but I somewhat doubt it’ll be completed by the end of this term. Hopefully the new walkway will be worth the wait.
I have my fingers crossed in hopes that the things I’ve talked about will come to be a reality sometime during this year. Maybe Drexel will surprise us and add more useful things than what I’ve mentioned that will make living on campus even more enjoyable than it currently is. Last year was pretty good in terms of some of the new things added to the campus, hopefully this year will end up being even better.