My undergrad was a while ago, but we also did assembly and prolog first. The lecturer basically said assembler was almost to shock us into seeing how preferably the magic was. I still don't understand why prolog.

I struggled with the Java, but got my teeth into it on my own time to the detriment of my marks in other modules. Eventually it clicked enough, I got a degree and walked into a career where my skills have been in demand for 15 years. I'm pretty happy with that, I'd go so far as to say Java was by far the best part of the course for me.