[ghiculescu]

It’s not common in Australia at least. I wrote my first code in year 1 of CS. Most people in my class were in the same boat. Tutored the course after graduating and it was the same; in a class of 30 you’d usually see 1 or 2 who had any prior knowledge and breezed through it.

This was 10 years ago but I doubt it’s changed significantly. I think there’s also lots of people who don’t enroll because they think prior knowledge is required, which is a hard barrier to overcome.