It really is a bad design to use database column names in the GUI. One improvement on using database column names is to use a resource file in your GUI. In
Java, resource files map one string to another. So, you can use the database column names in this file, and map them to the display string.
Here is some code from a resource file which I am currently using (not for the
SCJD project, for something at work)
So instead of using "CM_LABEL_ACTIVE", you would use "CustomerID" and map it to "Customer ID". Your GUI app could search for the resource, and only use the database name for the column if you don't find it in the resource file. You could even automatically add a help label which is mapped to help text about the column, i.e. "CustomerID_HELP" could map to a string which explains the required format of the customer ID. Again, you could automatically search for this.
I don't think you need to do any of this for the assignment, just a suggestion if you want to do it the way you are proposing.