McDonel hall.

McDonel hall is most commonly affiliated with being the international hall… Meaning,  a hefty portion of the residents of the hall are foreign.

The thing that most prompted me to review the McDonel hall was an e-mail I received stating that – “As you begin to think about where you’ll live (and eat!) next year, we wanted to give you advance notice that McDonel Dining Hall will close at the end of this academic year in May of 2011.” With the reason for doing this move was- “We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but we want you to know that we’re making this change to River Trail Dining Services to accommodate the needs of the varying number of students living on campus.”

Now, I’m nowhere near naïve enough to believe that the only reason they are closing that particular cafeteria is to facilitate the needs of various numbers of students, and I’ll make the assumption that they are closing it because they don’t get frequented enough for them to be profitable to stay open…. Which makes sense. If something isn’t profitable, cut it.

But, I decided to look into what could be making this hall unprofitable, and see if there was anything blatantly obvious. I first checked what McDonel’s schedule of being open. The hall is never open for Breakfast, and is not open on the weekends. In addition, it closes early, and on Fridays it is only open until 2 pm. Being as that schedule is extremely close to Akers’, I set further off to figure out what is making it close.

Since it is an international hall, it makes sense for a proportional part of the population of the hall’s cafeteria to also be foreign. So I focused on the menu of the hall… And I’ll admit, I didn’t try anything that I didn’t know what it was, just to make sure I could retain my current health status… But the hall definitely facilitates to the foreign attendees, and also contains a station similar to a deli, that has sandwiches and burgers, and a killer philly steak sandwich.

I guess it’s possible that the foreign people wanted to blend in with everyone, and eat American food more, and since almost every residence hall already contains a foreign food counter, they still have that option avaialbe to them.

Even though, it annoys me that they’re going to close down a cafeteria, even though it is closed more than it is open. It just adds that extra hassle to people who live there to find food, especially for those people who are just entering America.

Hopefully they at least turn the Cafeteria into some kind of game room, or another interactive activity center. I kind of doubt that as the solution, but it’d be a great, and fun one.

Anyway… Onto some more exciting details about the hall.

The hall contains its own fitness center, which is  convenient for those conscious of their physique, or just generally interested in staying in shape during the rainy or snowy Michigan weather.

Also, in the basement is a large room, used for hanging out, with a ping pong table, some billiards, and a bunch of free space for other spontaneous games. While the person I interviewed for this couldn’t name anything in particular extra done in this room, they know that there are other activities.

To help students adjust and help them enhance their interviewing skills, during the Engineering Career Fair this week, there was a faux career fair hosted in McDonel. The general purpose was to further help people prepare for interviewing with potential  employers. You’d walk around, introduce yourself, and make small talk... After it’s over, the faux employer can give you some advice on things you may want to improve about your specific interview.. Firmer hand shake, smile more, be more personable… etc.

The hall contains specific floors that are reserved to be “quiet”, which seems hard to enforce. Certain floors are alcohol-free, which (as stated in the Akers review) is ludicrous, some co-ed floors.

Overall, Mcdonel is a good all… Hopefully it is still good after having its cafeteria removed from it… Only time will tell.