You could probably argue that there would be a benefit to a semester or two of basic training/bootcamp for theory-heavy engineering curricula (not just CS) espe

You could probably argue that there would be a benefit to a semester or two of basic training/bootcamp for theory-heavy engineering curricula (not just CS) especially for students who are going in essentially cold. Probably CS is a particularly extreme example in that there's no formal expectation that an incoming freshman has done any real programming. Though even in something like mechanical engineering it's not like students have worked on cars or been in a machine shop.