Let's give my case, my course are civil engineering, even further distance than ur course with Java, since electronics and computer fit closer than concrete with computer
I know nothing bout programming 2 years ago, n it's only been half a year after my introduction with Java, only with a very minor base from C++, but i love programming the moment i touch them, still do now, the hope and faith keeps drawing me and eventually i had learn quite an amount so far
So, just have hope and faith, a little luck would help too
But to be sure, Java ain't really that hard, the language are rather easy to digest, since it implements the object oriented feature, the hard parts mostly relies on how to master the API, knowing the classes are quite a hell with all thousands of those .java API in the srczip from java 6
Keep up the effort, nothing is impossible