what to study next?

dear programmers:

would it be harmful or dumb to learn functional programming before any other paradigm, such as imperative, or object-oriented? i took one course in college intro c++ and want to move forward now, so i'm thinking either object-oriented and moving to data structures (berkeley cs dept available free on their site), or functional programming w scala (coursera) next.

thoughts?

>> 21

implying that learning coding through rote problem solving is not a good technique? been coding for 15 years, could prob handle most situations in my language but i don't know if i agree with this more academic approach. perhaps it works when they still haven't sullied themselves with all kinds of crap.