You can, and most people want to. Centering clay is frustrating for longer than you expect, and a course that gives you nothing but the wheel can leave you with several weeks of nothing. Hand building teaches you how clay behaves, how thick a wall needs to be and how joins fail. A course that mixes the two keeps you making things while your hands learn the wheel.

Because ceramics runs on a cycle you cannot rush. Wet work has to dry slowly, then it is bisque fired, then glazed, then fired again. Kilns are loaded when they are full, so your mug waits for other people's pots. Expect a gap of a few weeks between making something and carrying it out the door, and ask how you get told when a batch is ready.

Because glaze is a recipe that only finishes in the heat. Raw glaze is a dull slurry that tells you almost nothing. Thickness, the clay underneath, where your piece sat in the kiln and how fast it cooled all change the result. Studios that care about this keep a board of fired test tiles by the glaze shelf. Use it, and write down what you dipped.

Usually access outside class hours, a wheel you do not have to share, storage on a named shelf and use of the kilns. Clay and firing are normally charged on top. Ask how booking works when the wheels are full, whether your shelf gets cleared if work sits too long, and whether a taught course is a condition of joining. Some studios only take members who already throw.

Old clothes, and an apron if the studio does not lend them. Clay dust does not brush off and slip does not wash out cleanly. Cut your nails short, because long ones dig a spiral into every pot you pull up. Tie long hair back and leave rings at home. Bring a towel. Everything else, from tools to sponges, is usually on the studio bench already.

In a properly run studio, nowhere near it. Kilns sit in their own room or behind a door only staff open, and loading and unloading is an adult job. Glazes are the other question: junior classes are usually given a short list of studio-safe ones instead of the open shelf. Whether an adult teaching a junior group is screened at all is a state decision, so put the question to the studio.