[tegeek]

I had the opposite experience. I went to study Software Engineering (in 2009) and during first semester I happened to attend a class Programming Paradigms (topic was Functional Programming that day).

The lecture was being delivered by John Hughes, one of the researcher & designer of Haskell. In 1 hour class he blew my mind and I was sold to Computer Science in general and Programming Languages in specific. Next day I registered myself in Introduction of Functional Programming class. The Haskell language broke me from inside out and I failed the course. But I got one of the biggest pleasures of my life. It was about thinking in terms of mathematics, lambda calculus and building a life long love for mathematics. I then studied courses in Logic, compilers, and frontiers of programming language technologies. I started job during the education and couldn't complete my masters degree but that 1 year of studies in CS changed my mind forever. And I'm very thankful for the 1 hour I spend with John Hughes.