[mafribe]

I have asked tens of final year students to learn Scala for their final year projects, and pointed them towards Odersky's Coursera course. All my students liked the course, picked up Scala quickly, really enjoyed programming in Scala afterwards. Once they get it, they typically say something along the lines of "I never want to go back to Java".

As an aside, part of why Odersky's course work so well is that it's influenced by SICP (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs) by Abelson and Sussman.