After a few attempts at bowls and a single bowl turned out decently well, I did a little more research (a.k.a watching instagram and youtube videos).
Most of the ceramicists I watched used bats to throw on so that they weren’t warping the pieces as they tried to take them off the wheel, so I attempted to make bats out of particle board. Shape wise it was great, but I had a really hard time getting the particle board bat to stay on the wheel. The conclusion I came to was that the particle board had no grip and so wouldn’t stay on the wheel; even when I had great suction, I’d press a little too hard at the wrong angle and the whole thing would fly off, bat, clay and all.
I’ll look into getting another material for bats, like the plywood the potter in the video used, and see how it goes!