Hey thanks for the replies, I've been busy this last week and so I didn't get to see the comments until now.
I asked my teacher the question about austenization and he reaffirmed that it depends on many variables, I forgot the exact number for an "average" steel that he gave me, it may have been 20m, or possibly 2h haha, so I can't remember which. Either way, he is a good guy, but his knowledge on this subject seemed sketchy, I'm pretty sure it doesn't take that long.
In terms of doing experiments in the lab:
The class isn't a metallurgy class by any means, its a materials class, and covers different topics relating to materials science, a few of the units we covered had information pertaining to blacksmithing, which I ate up :) We covered phase diagrams and calculations involving phase diagrams, knowing what phases are present and in what concentrations, and where, as well as the compositions of each phase (lever rule stuff). Strengthening mechanisms were covered as well, like why alloying elements add strength, grain boundary size, dislocation density etc. We did some stuff on phase transformations, which included the time temperature transformation curves etc.
So in our labs we never get to do any real practical heat treating, since that is such a small part of the course. We did a lab where we performed tensile tests with different steels, and had a lab where we tested some different treated steels as well (it was pretty cool). Otherwise we did some fractography stuff in the last lab, which was really interesting. Our labs are always prepackaged, I could probably get some time with some of the machines if I really put some effort into it, like a hardness testing maching (don't we all wish we had one? :) ) as well as the microscopes and tensile test machines. Generally access is limited to people working on their fourth year design projects, as otherwise every guy who liked working with tools would be using the machines, and they are needed by the staff.
If you guys have any theoretical questions or calculations you're interested in, feel free to ask. I understand the material we covered, but I know if I don't use it I'll lose it, so that would be an excellent way to keep me fresh, and also a way to learn the details better.
Thanks again for the replies.