A teacher who thinks this way is probably in the wrong profession. A university that operates this way is failing to educate the students it admitted.
From my experience studying electrical and computer engineering, I definitely prefer that they chose to put hard electrical engineering courses in the first semesters because I knew immediately not to focus on them because I didn't like them.
Some students also just don't have the aptitude for an Engineering or Computer Science degree. It's better for everyone if this is figured out early. I know plenty of people that dropped out of a Computer Science degree because they hated it or thought it would be a great way to make money and were in over their head.
We had classes that were for 'weeding out' students in Computer Science. They involved calculus because if you couldn't pass this class, you wouldn't be able to handle the 5 or so classes after this class that required it.