Hi Ambie,

Welcome to the world of Maya. There are indeed lots and lots of learning material out there, some of it's free and well, since anybody can upload anything, be prepared to learn how to tie your shoelaces a few times . If you have to repeat a tutorial eight times before you're happy with the result then so be it. Check out the stuff on this site and don't be afraid to ask questions.

Also, I feel the need to say this because I've dealt with it and I know others who have. You'll be tempted to go really big with your projects in the beginning (who doesn't want to see their dream project finished right?), you'll learn a lot and you'll also get pretty frustrated (heh, you're going to get frustrated even when taking tiny steps) and maybe you'll get a little demotivated. Don't worry about that, come back to it when you can. Create small projects to apply what you've learned and if you're comfortable getting feedback, post it here!

As Daverave said, you don't need to know any scripting/programming language, they can make your life easier but I wouldn't worry about it.