Well, that explains your lousy high-school teacher... The only metric we employ in our schools to measure teachers' performance is a. do they fit in and b. can they keep their classes under control.

Same here. I guessed because you said you studied "economics and languages" (Economie-Talen) and because you had a bunch of teachers discouraging higher scientific studies because of less math background.

You do need to be really good in maths, have a really solid basis or work your ass off to succeed in the first few years of university-level computer science education. You did the latter, and you have my respect for that!