I'm sure every school has different rules about what lab work the students do and what work the lab techs do. For example, we won't cast our own full-cast crowns or RPD framework for patients, but we still learn how to do it. And we don't fabricate crowns or dentures, but we still wax up the denture (I'm sure every school makes their students do that). Everything else is pretty much fair game.
A lot of people hate setting teeth, but I find it relaxing.
Surveying and planning the framework for an RPD can get annoying because you have to draw a lot of information in a very small amount of space.
If you just hang out in the lab and learn how a lot of the equipment works, you'll be way ahead of your class.