Do you become energy when you hit light speed?

You would need to define the mechanism by which you are reaching light speed for a real answer.

Conventiinally relativity says that you cannot reach light speed unless you become massless as special relativity defines the energy contained by an object as

E = Gamma * m_0 * c^2

where Gamma is defined as 1 / Sqrt[1 - v^2 / c^2]; as you can see as v approaches c, Gamma approaches infinity, and when v = c Gamma = Infinity (in a sense), and the only way to not require infinite energy to reach that point is for the rest mass to be zero.

So, do you turn into energy automatically as you hit the speed of light? Special relativity says that you will never reach the speed of light so the answer is no. However to reach the speed of light you would need to be a massless item such as a photon to do so.

As for suggestions for your class, my best suggestion is to always slow down, maybe even stop, and think about the problems and what they are actually asking before you plunge into working on them. The number one mistake I see students make in physics classes is jumping into a problem calculating themselves into a corner and then ripping their hair out when the numbers don't work out right. When if they had stopped to set it up properly before they started they'd realize that they added many extra steps or weren't even calculating what they thought they were.

I do not "hit light speed."  I have rest mass m > 0, which means my velocity is limited to v < c where c is light speed in a vacuum.

If you could travel at light speed you would have no rest mass.  That is m = 0 would be true.  In which case your total energy would be (Mc^2) = (P)c, which is kinetic energy; where P = Mc would be your momentum when traveling at v = c.

And, as I said earlier, the only way you could do this is if you had absolutely no rest mass whatsoever... like a photon for example.  Even though m = 0, M > 0 would be true.  And M is a mass like factor that has equivalent total energy E = Mc^2 in much the same way e = mc^2 for ordinary rest mass.

So the answer is, no... one does not "become energy" at light speed, one "is energy" at light speed and never rest mass m.

Trick question.  If you actually made it to the speed of light, then you would not exist as we know you to exist.  Things would be different.  How?  We don't know.  We do know they would be different.  We know this because based upon what we know, you cannot get to the speed of light.  Hence, something is different.  Maybe you went to another universe where the rules are different.