Been here since July 2018. The trades themselves s...

Been here since July 2018. The trades themselves so far are nice. You learn from some great instructors and you can get far if you do work for it. That being said, living on campus is terrible. The staff (residential advisors or RAs) do not care about the students here and will be petty the minute you challenge their authority. Two of the dorms on campus have shared restrooms and house some of the most disgusting students and neglectful staff (so much so that some dorms have what's called "hygiene rooms" that are absolutely unbearable to live in, with rules that are not enforced by staff, and the living conditions of these rooms have caused trainees to self-terminate). The staff constantly preaches about being a drug free campus but you can walk around and smell weed at least twice a day. The Campus Police here don't do anything for students and are very unorganized. Couple this with having to sign a waiver that says if you die here, the campus takes no responsibility and refusing to sign it gets you kicked out. The disciplinary system they have here is absolutely ridiculous. Some trainees can cause fights, get caught with drugs, threaten others with razorblades, and brandish knives at security (and manage to convince the buffoonish staff there was no malicious intent), yet nothing is done. While not making your bed properly in the morning can get you a write up. Five write ups and you're kicked out. Well, you SHOULD be. But I've talked to students with six, seven, even eleven write ups and they're still here. You pretty much have to get completely violent with someone to get terminated.

To counter all of the negativity on campus, they've recently started a Guided Group Interaction (GGI) program here after each day. Its purpose is to bring "positivity" and "form bonds" to create an environment of positivity and to bring people together. Take it from me, someone who is forced to do it (threatened with write-ups if you don't attend) three out of five days a week. It's really more like a meeting with Alcoholics Anonymous that takes people away from their trade work or school work for almost an hour and wastes everybody's time talking about their daily accomplishments, however bringing up issues with other trainees, with policy, or a problematic staff member is discouraged and with some groups, outright not allowed. It's pretty sad when even the majority of the staff here tells students it's useless. Perhaps one of the biggest issues is they grade you on your level of positivity, and too low of a score can get you restricted from certain activities. I do not appreciate being taken from my work to spend 50 minutes at a pointless meeting and get threatened with disciplinary action for not acting positive to their standards.

If you can, do everything in your power to NOT live on campus. The free education is great but be prepared to deal with a lot of idiotic staff and illogical rules if you plan to live here.

P.S. As I type this section, I'm suffering from food poisoning, as well as a few others since the last thing we ate was the dinner they serve here. You hear about people getting food poisoning a couple times a month, which is ridiculous.