I don't get why you are basing your opinion of Computer Science students on just one school, Kings College, which isn't exactly the epitome of higher education. If you want Computer Science/Engineering graduates worth their salt, you should start looking at the top Computer Science schools: MIT, Stanford, CMU, Berkeley, Cornell, Illinois-UC, Wisconsin-Madison, UT-Austin, and lastly, University of Washington (which is where I got my BS in CompE).
And as for learning introductory programming, I learned it in Java, shortly after my school made the switch from C++. While I kinda wish I had learned C++ from the start, I honestly don't think it matters which language you learn first, as long as the instructor emphasizes the basics of programming and not just the language. I haven't used Java in any of the software jobs I've taken since becoming a CompE major and graduating--just a lot of Perl and little bit of C++.
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I don't get why you are basing your opinion of Computer Science students on just one school, Kings College, which isn't exactly the epitome of higher education. If you want Computer Science/Engineering graduates worth their salt, you should start looking at the top Computer Science schools: MIT, Stanford, CMU, Berkeley, Cornell, Illinois-UC, Wisconsin-Madison, UT-Austin, and lastly, University of Washington (which is where I got my BS in CompE).
And as for learning introductory programming, I learned it in Java, shortly after my school made the switch from C++. While I kinda wish I had learned C++ from the start, I honestly don't think it matters which language you learn first, as long as the instructor emphasizes the basics of programming and not just the language. I haven't used Java in any of the software jobs I've taken since becoming a CompE major and graduating--just a lot of Perl and little bit of C++.