I suspect that there is a transition, that happens after high school for some people, where the world goes from a bewildering set of disjointed arbitrary facts

I suspect that there is a transition, that happens after high school for some people, where the world goes from a bewildering set of disjointed arbitrary facts that need to be memorized, into comprehensible system that can be understood and behavior predicted (with sufficient effort). I also suspect that part of this is that software engineers, realizing that they can now purchase things like lab equipment and bacteria cultures, are now free to fund their own learning in their own idiosyncratic way (much like they learned to program), and not worry about burning money on something that doesn't pan out. Between this, a new confidence that the world is understandable and... debuggable, and the fact they can finance their own experiments, gives a shift in perspective that wasn't available when they were in high school.