As (potentially) one of those professors, I&#x27;m going to suggest that if you&#x27;re posting on HN, you have no idea how little computer experience some of the Econ, engineering, etc. students have. Matlab and other programs like it try hard to smooth over some of the rough edges that can trip up complete novices. As long as the main focus of the class is teaching &quot;something other than programming&quot; that&#x27;s going to be pretty attractive.