Getting started in CG

[mca]

I'm considering trying my hand at CG. I don't plan on quitting my job to pursue it full time but I'd like to try it out and see how I like it. However, I know next to nothing about it.

I recently graduated from a prominent university in Southern California with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. I took two courses in object-oriented programming in C++, learned MATLAB, and took an introductory course in image processing. In high school, back in 2003, I took a semester-long course in graphic arts.

So where do I start? Can I just dive head-first into CG or do I have to learn some fundamentals first? For example, I went to Stanford's CS department to see if they had any courses in computer graphics. I found that they did, but the prerequisites were courses that delved deeply into computer science, stuff that I didn't think would apply at all to CG. Do I really need to learn that?

I know of some of the software that's used in CG, namely Maya, 3Ds, and After Effects. But that's about it. Is there some website for beginners you'd recommend? Perhaps an online course or a book? I saw some books on the aforementioned programs at Borders, some of which could have been for beginners, but I don't know if it's a good idea to start with one of those.

I really want to try it out because it looks fascinating but I just don't know where to start. Any tips?