Surveying Harvard Dining: An Architectural and Mathematical Assessment of University Dining Services and Spaces

Abstract

I study the use of written and observed feedback in Harvard dining halls within the frameworks of architectural and operational systems. I leverage observational studies and written student surveys from the past decade to reimagine the built environment of dining spaces on campus, as well as construct recommendations regarding changes to Harvard University Dining Service’s application of student feedback. Ultimately, a system for processing student feedback and constructing new dining spaces is proposed which utilizes a Latent Dirichlet Allocation model to optimize student experiences.