Welcome to the board from Spring, Tx. Looks like they've already told you about both strip piecing and using an acrylic ruler with that rotary cutter. Hope you're using a cutting mat under that rotary cutter. There are a lot of beginners tutorials online as well as some great beginner books. Looking at the tutorials here will be quite helpful. No! You do not have to individually cut a bunch of squares - isn't that great news. Happy quilting and you can learn a lot here!