Welcome to Gaia! ::

There are many of these in Azeroth, and basically put, they are like your "careers" that can help you in the game.

The ones that you should get as soon as possible are:

First aid
Cooking
Fishing

These three may be called secondary, but believe me, you'll need them. If you are not a healer, first aid creates bandages that you can use on yourself.

Cooking goes without saying. Most recipes require a cooking fire, so be sure to look for them.

Fishing and cooking go hand in hand since there are a lot of fishing recipes that you can learn. These two are likely the most fun I've had when I was tired of quests, dungeons, or battle grounds.

Here are the other professions that you can learn:

Herbalism - look for many herbs throughout. Used in potions mostly. Gives you experience each time you find an herb. A great level booster.

Alchemy - best learned when taking herbalism. Since alchemy needs herbs in order to make potions and elixirs.

Mining - find ores, gems, and stones throughout the map. The best money making profession going, plus it earns you experience each time you find a vein or deposit.

Blacksmithing - works well with mining. Create armor and weapons with this skill.

Engineering - works well with mining. Create bombs, dynamite, guns, and stuff to tinker with. In a word...fun.

Jewelcrafting - works well with mining. Create accessories early with this skill.

Skinning - as suggested, you skin animals to get leather and hides from them. No experience to level is gained, but the leather is the most used in the game for a variety of things. It rivals mining for money making.

Leatherworking - works well with skinning. Create armor suited for rogues and hunters.

Tailoring - Works well with skinning. Create armor suited for priests, druids, and mages. Later on, you can also make bags using first aid cloths.

Inscription - make glyphs.

Enchanting - improve weapons and armor. Works well with inscription as dusts are needed to make glyphs.

Archeology - a profession learned later in the game, but is fun if you like finding rare treasures.

Recipes for cooking

Recipe name: Spice Bread
Skill level: 1 - 60
Ingredients: Mild Spices and flour

Recipe name: Roasted Boar meat
Skill level: 1 - ?
Ingredients: Chunk of Boar meat

Recipe name: Lynx Steak
Skill level: 1 - 60?
Ingredients: Lynx meat

More recipes to come

Leather working recipes

Mats (Materials)

1. Name of recipe: Heavy Borean Leather
Ingredients needed: 6 Borean leather

2. Name of recipe: Borean leather
Ingredients needed: 5 Borean leather scraps

3. Name of recipe: Heavy Knothide leather
Ingredients needed: 5 Knothide leather

4. Name of recipe: Knothide leather
Ingredients needed: 5 knothide leather scraps

5. Name of recipe: Cured rugged hide
Ingredients needed: 1 rugged hide and 1 refined deeprock salt

6. Name of recipe: thick leather
Ingredients needed: 6 heavy leather

7. Name of recipe: rugged leather
Ingredients needed: 6 thick leather

8. Name of recipe: Heavy leather
Ingredients needed: 5 medium leather

9. Name of recipe: Medium leather
Ingredients needed: 4 light leather

10. Name of recipe: light leather
Ingredients needed: 3 ruined leather scraps

11. Name of recipe: Cured thick hide
Ingredients needed: 1 thick hide and 1 deeprock salt

12. Name of recipe: Cured heavy hide
Ingredients needed: 1 heavy hide and 3 salt

13. Name of recipe: cured medium hide
Ingredients needed: 1 medium hide and 1 salt

14. Name of recipe: cured light hide
Ingredients needed: 1 light hide and 1 salt

(more to come)