No prior programming experience. Please advise.
For example, if you are implementing a tree traversal algorithm, you are implementing the tree traversal mechanism and are rarely bothered with the "correct" way to traverse pointers or manage memory. It helps (in terms of productivity) to have built in language features take care of these things. For a "new" student, java seems like a good starting point and once you get a hold of the things you want to optimize, you can look in more depth or maybe even figure out you need to implement some parts in a different language altogether.
Flexibility of C++ vs Java is a contentious issue at best, concepts and best practices (from a CS view point) would apply across all languages.
* I started with C, then moved to C++, then Java, then Go so I know how it feels to progress through the language-sphere. The above views are my own and YMMV. I find C/C++ to be the best starting place but I know a lot of students who found it too low level and nit-picky and java seems like a good way to start. Again, YMMV.