How to power long (30 ft) nichrome wire from 120v AC wall socket
but I have talked to a few people who are experienced in electronics, and they have suggested using mosfets or PWM for powering long nichrome wire coils.


That is what I would use to design a circuit to control a nichrome coil too.

But as your instructor already mentioned, you don't need to design your own circuit. Read on...


  (304V at 2.4A to reach 1000deg F) Are those hard numbers?


Well they are if you want it to be 1000deg F. Wall power is 120V (in your country) so when you plug this coil in it'll be more like 120V at 0.9A (maybe more than 0.9, but less than 2.4) and in my estimation based on your original numbers, about 250-400 deg F.

A shorter length of wire will actually create more heat, due to the lower resistance. Find a length that will create the right amount of heat with 120V. Or, if that's too short (and doesn't reach far enough), you could find the length that creates half as much heat, but then use two of them in parallel.


  I have talked to my instructor, and they have said that for that length, I should literally just plug a wall outlet into a dimmer switch, and route the dimmer directly to the coiled nichrome. From there I could control the temperature with relative ease. 


Yup. That's what a dimmer does really.


  I feel like that is a really bad idea, and that there should be some extra safeguards.


I can see three main dangers here:


Don't put flammable items nearby because they could catch fire (duh)
Don't touch any live parts, including the nichrome wire while it's plugged in because you'll get shocked
Make sure the wire isn't touching anything conductive, including itself - that would be a so-called short circuit which would increase the current.


I think the first two are easily solved with some common sense - make sure all the live wiring is in a place where you won't accidentally touch it, and where there's nothing flammable.

To mitigate the third possibility, if you don't trust your apparatus, you can add a fuse in series with the nichrome wire. I'm not really qualified to suggest which type of fuse.

You could also double-check the resistance with a multimeter if you want (while not plugged in) to make sure you haven't shorted it out. The resistance should be more-or-less the same as what you calculated.