Joel on pointers

[...] until one day their professor introduces pointers, and suddenly, they don't get it. They just don't understand anything any more. 90% of the class goes off and becomes PoliSci majors, then they tell their friends that there weren't enough good looking members of the appropriate sex in their CompSci classes, that's why they switched.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html (yes it's quite an old story...)