Do I need to create a separate class in my models.py when using the django.contrib.auth.models import user?
There's a number of things going on here. As you're aware, Django comes with a number of "contrib" packages that can be used in your app. You "activate" these by putting them into your INSTALLED_APPS.
When you run python manage.py syncdb, Django parse the models.py files of every app in INSTALLED_APPS and creates the associated tables in your database. So, once you have added django.contrib.auth to your INSTALLED_APPS and ran syncdb, the tables for User and Group are there and ready to be used.
Now, if you want to use these models in your other apps, you can import them, as you mention, with something like from django.contrib.auth.models import User. You can then do something like create a ForeignKey, OneToOneField or ManyToManyField on one of your models to the User model. When you do this, no tables are created (with the exception of ManyToManyField; more on that in a bit). The same table is always used for User, just as for any of your own models that you might create relationships between.
ManyToManyFields are slightly different in that an intermediary table is created (often called a "join table") that links both sides of the relationship together. However, this is purely for the purposes of that one particular relationship -- nothing about the actual User table is different or changed in any way.
The point is that one table is created for User and this same table is used to store all Users no matter what context they were created in. You can import User into any and all of your apps, create as many and as varied relationships as you like and nothing really changes as far as User is concerned.
The import statement import the needed parts. but is the "user" class already made when you put that into your installed apps? or do you still need to clarify in models.py in order to make the table in the db? or can someone expand on how to use django users and sessions? I'm looking over the django docs right now and they all just go over how to use the thing once. they never put the code in a syntax where users are going to be the ones using the code through a browser and not you through a python shell.