If you are unfamiliar with the unix environment, I don't think you have time to become proficient in either vi or emacs, at least during a class of this magnitude. Maybe something like nedit or pico would help?
Nedit is very similar in style to notepad, but with some helpful programming features (i.e. syntax highlighting, code indentation, etc). Once you have time, I would however recommend you pick up vi or emacs.
