I've only done a UK Diploma in Computing, and then only as a part time course (OU), however we started with C and a hardware module (temperature sensor connected by parallel port - that dates it, though they were on their way out - IIRC it was the last year they used that module) and learnt binary operations, some assembler, memory addressing schemes and what have you. It was a great way to introduce the computer as a general purpose device and be able to link the computer language back to assembler and machine code and ultimately to physical operations on binary data within the processors and memory/RAM.
The other modules I took covered OOP using C++; Smalltalk, SQL, db design (JNF and all that jazz). We're going back more than a decade here so no doubt there was a whole heap more too.
Personally I liked starting with the hardware, jumping in with C and then linking the two together. Gave a good basis to understanding computers, I think that first module might have been called something like "understanding microprocessor based computing".
The other modules I took covered OOP using C++; Smalltalk, SQL, db design (JNF and all that jazz). We're going back more than a decade here so no doubt there was a whole heap more too.
Personally I liked starting with the hardware, jumping in with C and then linking the two together. Gave a good basis to understanding computers, I think that first module might have been called something like "understanding microprocessor based computing".