Don't kids get taught a functional language at Uni anymore?<p>It would appear it stopped at probably the same time they started teaching Java. Which is why some developers like my self are a bit amused by the younger generation be amazed by this 'new' thing.<p>Interested in others experience on this, was taught Pop-11, Miranda around 1996 at Uni.
From my own experience, I can recommend learning Scala. First, you treat is as a nicer Java, but then while trying to write more Scala idiomatic code, you smoothly slip into the world of functional programming. Sometimes without even noticing it, e.g. you are using monads (Option, Future) before knowing what a monad is.
ML. You're probably not aware of it but the next generation of programmers are learning how to write provably correct programs. Just in time for self-driving cars/trucks/planes.