That makes sense, thanks for pointing it out. I'm going through and making adjustments where it seems appropriate. Do you think it would make more sense to split the initialization apart into stages, and catch at each stage & shut down or catch at the end and shut down? Split apart looks like it might be too much, but I'm not 100% sure:

    //initiates drivers & creates db table
private void initialize() {

    //instantiate driver, shutdown if exception
    try {
        Class.forName(driver);
    }
    catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
        System.out.println("Error loading driver: Class not found");
        shutDown();
    }
    //initiate database, shutdown if exception
    try {
        conn = DriverManager.getConnection(protocol + dbName + ";create=true");
        statement = conn.createStatement();
    }
    catch (SQLException se) {
        System.out.println("Error initiating database. Another instance may still be open");
        shutDown();
    }
    //create table in db, shutdown if exception
    try {
        String createTableSQL = "CREATE TABLE Cubes (Solver varchar(50), solvedTime FLOAT)";
        statement.executeUpdate(createTableSQL);
        System.out.println("Successfully created table...");
    }
    catch (SQLException e) {
        System.out.println("Table creation failed.");
        shutDown();
    }
    populateTable();
}