Dude, I'd suggest chillin out first and thinking of what you want to do.

What does your college use?? If theres more support at your college for other softwares than i'd suggest you use that programe otherwise your gonna be banging your head with problems.

Just ask at your college before downloading and learning something that you might not need, for animation you might want to use motion builder, but again I would ask at your college what they use etc.

Oh if you do want to learn Maya and you've now got the PLE i'd suggest using its built in tutorials (Hit F1 for the help filkes and then have a read) to get you going.