When a method that specifies a return type other than void completes its task, the method returns a result to its calling method.

Method setCourseName and getCourseName each use variable courseName even though it was not declared in any of the methods.

• Can use an instance variable of the class in each of the classes methods.
• Exception to this is static methods (Chapter 8).

The order in which methods are declared in a class does not determine when they are called at execution time.

One method of a class can call another method of the same class by using just the method name.

Unlike local variables, which are not automatically initialized, every field has a default initial value—a value provided by Java when you do not specify the field’s initial value.

Fields are not required to be explicitly initialized before they are used in a program—unless they must be initialized to values other than their default values.

The default value for a field of type String is null.