There's a serious problem with how people learning languages... their exposure to their first language has a strong tendency to color their thinking (read: biases) towards/against other languages for the rest of their careers.

Another serious problem is that students end up with very distorted views of what "programming" is by getting only one narrow view of the how things work. Some curricula are over-focused on the abstract, "math" side of the field while others are stuck on the basic engineering side. There's not only a need for both but also the very hands-on administration/operations side precisely so that people get a much more well-rounded experience of the entire picture.