first day of Mig class.. safety gear?

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I live in Raleigh, work in Durham.. So on a lark I checked Durham Tech college for welding classes and they start this week.. so Tuesday I registered, and today is first day of class. MIG only, no pre-requisites, no info other than it is a class, the time, and the location.I made the judgement call to not bring any gear with me assuming that the first day of class would be more classroom type stuff, and I do not know what I should have brought anyways.  I think I need to get a real welding jacket / cape, as I usually weld in a cotton "hoodie" and jeans.  The Wake tech school has a list of gear to bring including your own clamps, brushes, chipping hammer, hood / glasses / hearing / boots / cape etc. etc. Do you think I made the correct decision?  In retrospect I wish I had just thrown some gear in the trunk of the car miller syncrowave 250hobart handler 140home made 400 amp engine driven in progress...
Reply:So I chose.....  wisely. First day was watching videos, listening to safety rules, and learning that they provide all the gear we need other than clothing, but we are encouraged to bring our own too if we want.Looks like the welding lab has good fume extraction system with 6 or 8 inch flexi ducts to each welding station.. It seems to have a lot more oxy/acetylene and tig/stick equipment than mig equipment, but since this is the first mig only class that makes sense.  It is a miller only shop, other than the hypertherm plasma cutters.  I saw a dynasty at most workstations, and a MM252 at 6 of the stations, so we are doubling up 2 per welder.  Luckily we will each have our own workspace for prep work and arc visibility control.. we just need to alternate who is prepping and who is using the welder.Instructor says we will get into some spoolgun aluminum later on, into some spray transfer, and we can work on our own projects, but we cannot use any shop metal as it is resold to a scrap dealer or somesuch.all in all, for $95 bucks, 24 hours of free welding time with someone to teach me the difference between "it looks good" and "I know it is a good weld" is a fantastic deal.  I expect to take different classes as they are offered including the oxy/acetylene, the stock, and the tig class, as well as the various machining classes for lathe / mill...miller syncrowave 250hobart handler 140home made 400 amp engine driven in progress...
Reply:Sounds like fun!Weld like a "WELDOR", not a wel-"DERR" MillerDynasty700DX,Dynasty350DX4ea,Dynasty200DX,Li  ncolnSW200-2ea.,MillerMatic350P,MillerMatic200w/spoolgun,MKCobraMig260,Lincoln SP-170T,PlasmaCam/Hypertherm1250,HFProTig2ea,MigMax1ea.
Reply:Cool. Consider making your own "training tree" at home so you can try multiple positions conveniently.If you have a hydraulic press you can make bend tests.