I "learned" Java in college, but didn't use it after graduating in '02. I was quite pleasantly surprised by all the (new to me) stuff like "anonymous inner classes," and ultimately I've come to respect the staunch minimalism of the language overall.

If you were finishing college in 02, the anonymous inner classes should have been there; I'm pretty sure they showed up in Java 1.1 at the latest. AWT used to be heavily dependent on them.