Anyone work with Maya 2012?

i recently got this program (free student version) because it seemed simpler than blender. so i was wondering if anyone worked with this program and if so would you be willing to teach me a bit?

so far i have (attempted, and failed miserably XD ) to model a halo reach marine helm.

I can work it a little bit. There's a site called Digital Tutors that has a lot of videos and courses on how to work it. It costs money, but you have to the student version of Maya, so you should see if your school offers it. I know I can watch the videos for free from the certain computer labs on campus. Maya has a bit of a learning curve, but once you learn the basics it gets better. I'll see if I can dig up my notes later.

I have used it a bit, but I didn't like it compared to 3ds max. It's a very powerful program but I really don't like the layout and how it has so many useless buttons that I would never use. It would take some time to clean up the user interface, but over all I don't look at it as a upgrade from 3ds max.

I would highly recommend 3ds max if you can get your hands on it. And of course learning one 3d program is like learning a coding language, once you learn one you can learn them all with little very little hassle.