>>17
It's not a language course, it's a whole course of study or whatever you call it (I apologize for my poor English, maybe you even meant the same). And the kanji do stay in long term memory past test day. I don't see any way to load so many kanji into short term memory and pass a test and forget them after. We don't learn all of them in one year, however, one semester only has like 14-16 weeks, right?
As for the textbook, it sucks ass, but is really only used to get a grasp of the grammar which is explained in depth by the lecturers and to translate texts, which are ok. I'll recommend a really good one, it's called "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" (ISBN4-7890-0454-6). This should be the grammar bible for anyone studying Japanese.