A lot of the students (and people in general) have a low-level cleverness obsession which handily blocks out high-level perception like that. Then the blocked

A lot of the students (and people in general) have a low-level cleverness obsession which handily blocks out high-level perception like that. Then the blocked out part becomes neglected so it turns kind of on/off in nature. It now gives you either super great or awful information. So as a result, it's not that you don't see the big picture. It's that your inadvertent feedback loop converted high level thinking into a huge scary monster of high-level disasters that will seemingly result if you aren't as clever as can be. This also explains the cleverness in the face of everything else. Caught? Email back and be clever. Etc. Don't ever stop being clever, caught or no. It is your only (seeming) chance. But did you also catch the high level thinking student who was feeling stuck and potentially screwed, in their honesty? They realize the system might just as easily punish them. They are also lucky the professor had a considerate perspective rather than a blanket-projection attitude that many have. They are also lucky they weren't randomly selected by the cleverness cabal... (Also notice that really good professors make for reliable bridges between high and low level perspectives, with expectations of the former but also multi-dimensional empathy for those living the low-level system. This professor is indeed a very clever person on their own. So for them this is situation is probably less likely to result in massive disillusionment as it would for pure high-level folks.)