I so agree with Beading Daily that a good clay teacher makes a big difference. I would NOT recommend Tamara Farion, the teacher I had for a beginner intro class at Bead Fest. She arrived late, did a lot of socializing and a tiny bit of teaching. A considerable percentage of the class could not complete the projects in class as stated.
In my case Tamara said my piece broke in the kiln and she would repair it and mail it to me. After 6 weeks I'm still waiting and she is not responding to email. Didn't get very much for my $265. I'll need to take another intro class to duplicate what I should have learned in this one.