The following tutorials teach concepts that anyone who does 3D programming or game programming should know off the top of their head, but that many beginning students may not be familiar with at all. Each tutorial has a section telling you who can skip it. You should really read these tutorials unless you "qualify" to skip them.
You can dive right into the main tutorials without reading this. But if you don't already know this stuff, you'll probably be wanting to know it by the time you get through the first couple of tutorials.
Vertices and Indices and Other Such Seas