When you're learning your first programming language, the specific language you learn isn't worth stressing over. You can be sure that the professors at your sc

When you're learning your first programming language, the specific language you learn isn't worth stressing over. You can be sure that the professors at your school put some thought into the decision, and even if you disagree, it would take a lot to convince them otherwise. There are so many things to learn, that you should really just start somewhere, anyway. Even if they teach you Java, what you should be learning are programming concepts. You can then apply those any programming problem. Personally, I think C would make a better choice, simply because it forces you to understand the underlying architecture, and appreciate the thinking behind the constructs of slightly higher-level languages. I'm sure I'm in the minority on that, though. Java is a decent choice, however, as it's very generic and allows you to focus on things like data structures and algorithms without necessarily having to go through that steep of a learning curve.