The counter is that a student (in part) wastes the graphics class because he/she did not have a solid foundation in the prerequisite topics. I was shocked how many of my friends in graphics were programmatically "multiplying matrices by hand" over and over again instead of relying on the abstraction. I agree with Devlin here: it's a cultural difference that they don't consider mathematics "as real" as they do programming, and their programs suffer for it.
So maybe what CS departments need is a class that surveys the higher-level courses, and motivates the foundational classes they will need to take for each subject.
So maybe what CS departments need is a class that surveys the higher-level courses, and motivates the foundational classes they will need to take for each subject.