It depends on the school, but it generally seems true that most don't start at the lower levels of abstraction. What I've seen is that it is fairly common to st

It depends on the school, but it generally seems true that most don't start at the lower levels of abstraction. What I've seen is that it is fairly common to start with Java, but to also have a course in C as a requirement (sometimes including some light exposure to assembly). For computer engineering students who need to work closer to the metal, starting with assembly or C is a lot more common.