Entirely anecdotally, I find that a maths/science background sometimes feels like more of an impediment to teaching someone practical code than an arts/philosop

Entirely anecdotally, I find that a maths/science background sometimes feels like more of an impediment to teaching someone practical code than an arts/philosophy/language one. Teaching is so often about finding the right metaphor, and students who are comfortable with metaphor tend to grasp the concepts faster. This doesn't hold for the deeper bits - the specifics of boolean algebra etc. - there you do want that rigorous, stepped approach to understanding. But in terms of quickly getting to grips with a language and its paradigms - programming, rather than computer science - the more practice a student has at working with highly abstract concepts the better. That's something that does often come with a STEM background, but pretty much always with an arts one.