I still have mine. The machine is a work horse and will sew thru just about anything. The only downside is that the embroidery unit takes only floppy disks, so if you want to download designs from the internet, you would need to purchase a 3.5" disk reader/writer. And unfortunately, you can't just drag & drop the file onto the disk. It takes a specially formatted disk, so you need the correct software. Viking 3D (and higher) software has this ability, but it's very, very expensive. Embird will also create the correct format disk and is a less pricey option. See if the software comes with the machine and what operating system it will run under. I still have an Windows XP machine for the really old stuff. You can still get Viking embroidery disks on ebay, but you are limited to those designs. You said that you used one in class. Was that at a Viking Dealer? If so, they may be able to advise you about the embroidery software and provide some support. I looked on ebay for sold units and they were going for anywhere from $400 - $1200 depending on what all was included.