Sawan Parikh ’23

The Strake Jesuit lunch line, nowadays slow and bloated, used to be somewhat manageable. However, with the reintroduction of 20-minute lunches, a lot of people are complaining.

Some people believe that 20 minutes is enough. With the two ten minutes passing intervals before and after the official lunch period, they believe that gives students more than enough time to get in, eat, and get out. Another argument is that lunch is meant for eating, not socializing, and for that reason short lunches encourage students to move fast. 

However, none of this realistically works for the majority of students. The 20-minute lunch could possibly be viable in a perfect world, but with the length of the lunch line and the distances to the lunchroom from some of the farther parts of campus, it doesn’t make sense. “I recently managed to get to lunch at the start of the period, and somehow still get out of the line with only 5 minutes of lunch left,” a junior said. Students are consistently asking teachers to let them out early in order to get a decent spot in line, are sprinting from their classes to the lunchroom, and even going as far as to cut the line in order to get food first.

There are a few different solutions regarding optimization of the lunch period. 

Either the issues with the line would have to be fixed, or there would have to be a change in time allotted. It wouldn’t hurt to take a few minutes off each class and add it to lunch, or even open up the other concessions stand near the Competition Gym for a fast food option. Whatever it is, something could be done to better this system for students and teachers alike.