Course

Hi real_human , Merry Christmas!

There is really no need to pause this Course and switch to the Rigging. I'd recommend finishing this one first and after that, you can either do the: https://cgcookie.com/courses/learn-how-to-rig-anything-in-blender-fundamentals-of-rigging  or continue with:

https://cgcookie.com/courses/animation-bootcamp

I don't know if it's necessary for animators to know how to rig, but I'm guessing it's great to have the skill set in the tool belt. I bet people learn to animate first, then when they get tired of getting malfunctioning rigs they're like screw this, I'm making my own rigs from now on, and then they learn rigging. It's just a guess though.

Hi real_human, 

Happy holidays.
You don't need to understand how to rig in order to learn how to animate.  But you do need to understand how to animate a rig (aka armature) in order to animate.
99% of the things you will animate will be "rigs" and not just plain old boring objects.

I hope that makes sense.