I think I've got a schoolgirl crush on the teacher. Eros and Thanatos,' she declares dramatically.

'Contemporary practice is part of a big, complex, rich history,' she tells us, and takes us on a canter through art from the 1960s to the present day. She has a sweep of long blond hair and a deep sexy voice. Our first session is like being back at university: we are given an art history lecture by the director of the Whitechapel art gallery, Iwona Blazwick.

You could be taken for a patsy at any one of these places, with all those cliquey people laughing at you as you spend your money on rubbish.' Galleries can be intimidating and works on sale baffling starting from scratch, how would you know what to buy? Course student Tom Symes, who works for an asset management company, puts it more baldly: 'You know it's going to be a lot of money, and the contemporary art world is a very cliquey place. But buying contemporary art, even for those few with the means to do so in these straitened times, can be daunting. Taking a course – costing £595, for which you could buy a decent artist's print with framing – may seem rather a pompous idea in the face of an activity that, reduced to its essentials, involves the mere signing of a cheque. It is a course that ends not with a certificate so much as a licence to shop at Britain's most prestigious contemporary art fair. And I am one of them – here to attend the first session of the Whitechapel's collecting contemporary art course, a five-part syllabus that culminates in a tour of Frieze. In a wood-floored studio above the Whitechapel Gallery's public spaces, looking out over the darkened roofscape of the City of London, 10 new students are taking furtive glances at each other over long-stemmed glasses of white wine.

Owning Art by Louisa Buck