Java 2 VB.NET

I'm checking out a VB.NET OOP session hoping to catch any programming gotchas that I should know about. At the end of the session the speaker allocated some time for questions. The interesting thing is most of the people asking questions were asking them from a Java perspective. I'm curious, are there a lot of Java programmers learning VB.NET? Seems odd to me, but in a down economy it could mean the difference between a job and no job.

BTW...It sure it odd to use +=, -=, &= and Return with VB.NET