Looking for advice. I know at some point down the road I would like to learn a 3d modeling program to create assets that otherwise probably wouldn’t be readily available. I know Blender is free so that is a plus, but I never heard of a studio using blender to make content for their game. If I am wrong, I do apologize now. What are the benefits to using one versus the other, and what are the drawbacks? Thank you in advance for any help.
I prefer Maya. I just love the way it works and it’s got great tools for everything (animation, modeling, UV, rigging). It is also an industry standard used my many (most) studios. So knowing the software will also give you carreer opportunities.
However, Blender is a wonderful piece of software for freelancers, individuals and small teams. It’s really good at modeling and sculpting and comes with a ton of great plugins. It’s not the easiest to use for a beginner but once you know your way around the software it’s really fast and productive.
As a Maya user I’d say go with Maya, but definitely give Blender a shot, maybe you’ll prefer it over Maya.
Plenty of AAA studios, and hollywood use blender. Blenders resume is larger than any other 3d software guaranteed. If your going to learn 3d modeling, and animation i would start with Blender. You can always go back to it, and it’s always there. It runs great on Linux also. Almost all softwares have trial periods. So you can try houdini, maya, modo etc. Blender is one of the first things I install on a new build.
Imo reason why is Maya considered as industry standars is some years ago it wasnt based on perpetual licenses…
I started with maya and now im working in blender… (2 months in both), blender is as powerful as maya. Maya has few things better over blender, but blender over maya too…
If you learn one or another,you won’t make bad decision, both softwares have almost same workflow, only just different UI, so switching to another software may take you 1-4 weeks learning UI and you are same productive as you was in previous software.
The question is probably if you can pay that horrible fees for maya… Im just using blender 1-2 hour/day so it perfectly suits for my needs.
I messed with both before I gave up a few years ago. Now that I am fully committed to learning game development again, I know I will need 3d modeling at some point to create assets. I am looking into classes on Udemy (my preferred choice for learning), that is why I was asking. Thank you all for the responses. I feel a bit better about making a decision now.
How many times will this question be asked?
As long as people will get into 3d, looking for the right software.
I’ve been using Blender for years (I think 7 now? could be wrong) But I have to say that once you get through the base learning curve it gets very easy. I’ve learned more about Blender through just Trial and Error. It is really powerful in the stuff you can produce and plus it’s free 
Looking for tutorials on blender. Could someone please post relevant tutorial links here for beginners.
Thanks. Is it like an official site for blender tutorials?
I also tried this community curated list. Looks good to me. Learn Blender - [2018] Best Blender Tutorials | Hackr.io
Here’s a couple good beginner series on that you can watch and follow along in blender:
v=Q1pL5Oc0vWs&list=PL32001WLw6WESprEkq_ddLnkBRWIUNC4Q
v=VT5oZndzj68&list=PLjEaoINr3zgHs8uzT3yqe4iHGfkCmMJ0P
v=CWgKrFk5gU4&list=PLjdLx7vjZszwBA7s-Mf2FTYuiD8shufKO
And there are plenty more tutorials available on , just search using “blender tutorials for beginners”, it comes up with over a million results! 
I feel Maya has better and more professional plugins, such as Advanced Skeleton, Epic’s ART, MGTools and so on. But Blender is free, so it really depends on your situation. Both are amazing software, and you can’t go wrong.
keep in mind all studio get their own worklow .
the other way on post Job from AAA official Dev. you can see the requirement for a 3D programmer / modeler .
Now if want to work as a freelance , may be learn both Blender / Maya or other utility and software , if you want a contract job to a AAA Devs. , focus to learn the utility , software used on their workflow .