C++ as First Language seems like an especially terrible idea to me. Maybe I should take a few months and go do one of those courses and see whether it's as bad as I expect.

The nice thing about Rust as First Language (which I'm not sure I'd endorse, but it can't be as bad as C++) is that because safe Rust ropes off so many footguns it's extremely unlikely that you'll be seriously injured by your lack of understanding as a beginner. You may not be able to do something because you didn't yet understand how - or you might do something in a terribly sub-optimal way, but you're not likely to accidentally write nonsense without realising and have that seem to work.

For example yesterday there was that piece where the author seems to have misunderstood how heap allocation works in Rust. But, in safe Rust that's actually harmless. If they write their mistake it won't compile, maybe they figure out why, maybe they give up and can't use heap allocation until they learn more.

I haven't thought too hard about Zig as first language, because to me the instability rules that out. Lecturers hate teaching moving targets.