So, I'm a student going through a two year culinary program. I'm almost finished and will need to provide feedback for the school upon completion. The school constantly gets catering events added to the agenda and it takes away from our classroom work. I wish I would have kept a proper log of the amount of time, but hindsight blah blah. There's even an annual event that the school requires us to miss two consecutive weeks of school and put in 40+ hours of labor. We are asked to not work our regular jobs during those two weeks as well. I am a non traditional student, in my early 30s. I can financially budget for missing two weeks of work, but it's hard to believe the school isn't creating financial hardships for the younger students.
They justify all the time spent doing the catering events by offering a Catering college course. But it's a 3 credit hour course and we far surpass the requirements for time. They threaten reduction in grades for missing catering events, but the class is part of the first year program. If you return for the second year of the program, you've already been given credit for the course.
What also irks me is the school charges fees alongside every culinary course to cover the cost of ingredients. We pay that upfront with the tuition, but they sporadically add in catering events all the time. Taking away from our classroom time, and our money paid to the school via fees goes where? We're essentially paying the school to work for them for free.
Everyone is conditioned to just put their heads down and get the job done, but it's a disgusting system. We're all guilted into not letting the school down or creating more work for our peers by missing the events.
I'm needing guidance on how much free labor a school can legally get out of it's students. I don't plan on creating any sort of legal battle or anything. I would just like to present the school with actual data showing what they're doing is wrong. I'm under the impression that many culinary programs are like this. All the money they make is going into someone's pocket. Just not the pockets of the individuals doing the work.