I like how one of my programming lecturers had never even heard of JSON before I asked whether I can use it in the assignment. In her defence (I guess), it wasn't a web dev class, but still how did she never come across JSON in her entire life?

Maybe she used protobuf or asn1

In my experience in college (before I dropped out in my 3rd year), the "programming" teachers were IT related teachers who were told to teach a course over programming...

They looked over the book they chose for the course and that was their entirety of programming knowledge. If something wasn't in the book (JSON for example), it was an unknown concept.

Universities rippin us off!

My experience is that most ppl never heard of it, a lot of ppl hates it and the rest is web devs.