I'd skip C entirely. C++ is only marginally better. Better to latch onto a modern language like Java, Ruby or C#. Dig into OOP like a mad man. When you want to think about algorithms or your domain you don't want to think about how you're managing your memory. We've abstracted away the nonsense of older languages because they led to buggy and brittle software. Hardware is cheap, memory is abundant and bandwidth is wide. Enjoy it ;)