It depends on the skill set a student brings into these programs. If they have a degree on Underwater Basket Weaving, well, unless they just happen to mentally

It depends on the skill set a student brings into these programs. If they have a degree on Underwater Basket Weaving, well, unless they just happen to mentally click with programming, no, they are unlikely to do well. If, on the other hand, they have a solid ten year career in software development and just need to get up to speed on, say, iPhone development, yeah, they are probably going to come out of the course absolutely rocking it. To put it in what some might consider to be somewhat violent terms: It's the old garbage-in, garbage-out principle.