The first seems a bit harsh to me, all blown highlights and solid striking colours.
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Totally agree - in fact what was the point shooting this so late with almost no ambient light with city lights mixing in? Let's say I'm having a go at that "night class" here. Photography 101 is all about light, its balance and camera control. You really have no chance to balance it all at night. I would tell this the mentor straight up and ask for my money back. Such shot would only work in a very remote rural location so late, and we would be talking super long exposures, image blending, high ISOs and all sorts of things... It is too complicated for the beginning.
The basics are as follows:
* "night time" should really refer to "Blue hour" photography while there is still some {more} light in the sky.
* If you are trying to balance lights you should pick the time when the brightness is comparable. Light meter may help for a start but a well trained eye should be able to judge it relatively easily. Same principles apply in a studio.
* Distractions. I have a feelings those lights are really just that and shouldn't be in the shot. Flat concrete wall is not the prettiest element either.
* Brightest objects are almost invariably the first ones to be looked at - that's your colourful blown out lights, then the bush and only then water on the right...
* Exposure and histogram. For your money the class should have explained how to expose images correctly on day 1. You need to refer back to histogram and you can clearly see in 1 it is all over the right edge which means it is blown out and these are the light reflections. No 2 is totally underexposed by 1 stop or more - histogram is concentrated very far to the left away from the right edge. In ideal case it should be going from left to right edge but not beyond. It really is not difficult - adjust shutter speed till you get there unless the contrast is too high.
* The subject of the image. What is it? What is the subject's relationship with the surroundings?
* Composition. Normally in landscapes it works best to have lead in lines or other geometric shapes that go into the frame and direct the view. In these examples it is instead all going out and dividing the frame, which should be ideally avoided.
I basically would have shot the river looking upstream, perhaps from some bridge. An S bend in the river would work wonders for composition. I would have shot this with lots more daylight still available, or perhaps even during the golden hour...
At night or more specifically blue hour I would initially go and try some architecture to get the balance right. It sounds like you are more likely to get useful advise on here at the end of a day.
Well......I'm pretty sure I always thank folks.
