Did the professor tell how to get around this in class? i remember the "pooling" idea, but is there a way to connect once the max_user_connections have happened already?

Well the best answer I have so far, (other than pooling the connections), is when you have already connected to the database via the mysql gui. In the left Window pane, click on client connections, and to the right you will see all the current connections open. Select one and click on kill connection. This will free up some of the 5 connections available. This is if you're lucky enough to still have the mysql workbench running that you used to connect to the database initially. I don't remember if there is a default timeout on open sessions, I will try to find out. And I don't know if, (after mysql has been closed), mysql will connect using the previous session used. If so, you should still be able to kill the connections with the method I suggested earlier. There are also command lines you can use, but I haven't tried them.

After waiting a while it let me click on Client Connections and I could kill some connections...