Back in the mid 90s when I studied CS/EE (in Sweden) it seemed like LISP (and SICP) in undergrad education was primarily used as tool of bringing everyone down to the same base level, so that the 50% of students who had already spent ten years programming iteratively wouldn't have a gigantic advantage.
I dropped out after two years partly because of this. I was learning so much more at my part time job - it was insane how effective that job was at teaching me programming. It set me up for life. I can't even summarize it without it sounding made-up, I just realized.
(This problem has nowadays been fixed at my "alma mater". I think they're doing Python now.)
My experience is the opposite: I only appreciated the marvel of SICP (at least that's how I experienced it at the time) because I already knew other programming languages. Something "clicked" that didn't click before. I have the feeling that students with no previous programming experience didn't feel this.
If that's true, it also makes sense to start with Python and move SICP to later in the program.
I dropped out after two years partly because of this. I was learning so much more at my part time job - it was insane how effective that job was at teaching me programming. It set me up for life. I can't even summarize it without it sounding made-up, I just realized.
(This problem has nowadays been fixed at my "alma mater". I think they're doing Python now.)