This is my post, not an anonymous coward. I accidentally checked the anonymous box on my phone haha.

As a recent cs graduate, who experienced the "fast track" classes first hand, i can attest that they are extremely effective. I came into college with a single year of programming experience. Yet if I had taken a cs 101 course instead of the course that rolled cs 101 and 102 into a single semester, I would have been bored to tears. I cannot understate how necessary it is to meet cs students at their level. I still attribute my success as a programmer to the fact that I was challenged, and engaged from day one of my college career. Unfortunately I have also had first hand experience regarding other students feeling that they "don't get it" or "will never match so-and-so at programming" and it is extremely disheartening to see potential leave our field for such reasons. I was the student who "got it" in many of my classes, and I had alot of trouble understanding that others might not grasp the concepts I found simplistic. I was a pusher in classes, striving for more in depth analysis and questioning the reasoning behind the concepts we were given. Looking back now, I can see how my fellow students felt, but back then I only knew of my own thirst for knowledge. We as professionals, professors, and programmers have the burden of challenging each student at their individual level. We cannot function like math and physics with narrow concepts that students know or do not, our concepts are broad and have variable levels of understanding. Teaching syntax to students who already know design patterns will drive them away just as swiftly as teaching data structures to students who struggle with loops and conditionals. It is an extremely difficult task we are set with, but one that is extremely rewarding when you are able to meet a budding programmer at their own level and provide them the knowledge and challenges they need to develop into the colleagues we know they can be.