One of the great things about Stanford CS program is that it tries very hard not to have the "sink or swim" mentality, especially for the first 2 classes. For t

One of the great things about Stanford CS program is that it tries very hard not to have the "sink or swim" mentality, especially for the first 2 classes. For those classes, you have a large lecture, but then you have 10-person sections once a week, 6 hours a night where you can come and have section leaders help you with assignments, and "interactive grading" with your section leader where you spend 10-15 min going over your assignment and hearing what you did well and where you can improve. This has been hugely successful; on the order of half of undergrads take the first class, and gender balance is pretty good in them.