Meanwhile my sister's first programming course at university involved making a game using an existing bespoke framework. It mostly involved adding graphics and a few methods & some properties to objects (which already had physics etc. implemented) in an otherwise more or less done project base. I don't know about retaining or intimidation but I feel like it was way too much "just fill in the gaps, look you have a character on the screen now" and that they really failed to teach the basics of programming and I got the vibe that students finished the course not really having any clue how the whole thing works at all. The next course was object oriented programming at the deep end.

I feel like she's still struggling with the basics and doesn't have much self confidence at all. And she's not dumb.