Hi aliissa
I don't live in Portland In fact I don't even live on your side of the pond, I'm in the UK - I was just aware that Portland is in Oregon.

The LUG in Portland:

http://www.pdxlinux.org/

I am sure they will be willing to help beginners to Linux, these Linux people tend to be friendly fellows - take a look at Neo and PxT

I'm not too familar with the college that you mentioned, but I am sure it will give you a very good beginners introduction to UNIX if that is what the couse is designed to do. Just as a general pointer I would ascertain if they have hands on learning, i.e. if they let you mess around with UNIX machines while you are learning, and it is not just a solely theoretical course. In my experience there is NOTHING more beneficial than learning something in theory and then trying to apply it in practice on a UNIX box, and in a test/learning environment it is even better since you're not worried about messing things up. In fact you often obtain a wider skills base when things go wrong since it then becomes a troubleshooting as well as a learning exercise.

You might also want to look into getting yourself a UNIX shell account, your ISP may give you one for a nominal charge, or you can search the internet for shell accounts. This will be useful to you in your early days of learning UNIX, as you get more advanced you're going to want your own machine, where you can have super user access.

If you need any more help please don't hesitate to ask!

Regards.