Getting a field value

I'm adding information with the INSERT command to 2 tables. In the first table, called "courses", I have a field called "course_id" that is an auto-increment - assigned by the table. In the second table, called "par", I have a field also called "course_id". I need to assign to this field the value that is assigned for "course_id" in the "courses" table. The problem is, I don't know what it is going to assign, and I can't get the variable with a query such as "SELECT * FROM counties WHERE course_id = ##" because I don't know what number is going to be assigned as the course_id. Basically, I need to store the that course_id value of the course I just added in a a variable, and I don't know how to retrieve that variable. Any help would be greatly appreciated...