Hi everybody! Here's my take and hope it helps. I took the course Oct.2010, traded with 'paper' money from the brokerage site for 5 mths; then went 'live' March this year. Depending on the size of your trades, over time, you DO recoup your 'school fees'. For me, I took a little over 1 month to do that. Then, because I didn't follow the 'exit rules', lost 1/2 of what I made because my trade tanked after a 230% run! Now, I make sure I have my 'trailing stops' in place. We are taught all the fundamentals. It's up to us to follow through and apply them mindfully. That's experience. As traders, we never stop learning.