It's more like they don't teach general diagnosing/understanding why things don't work. I consider the skills needed to debug a computer program, to diagnose a

It's more like they don't teach general diagnosing/understanding why things don't work. I consider the skills needed to debug a computer program, to diagnose a hardware problem, to fix a car, and to fix commercial coffee brewers to be almost identical (and I have done all of these things, a lot). In fixing a computer, you have a mental checklist of all of the things that could contribute to it (failing hard drive, bad termination, failing memory, loose cable). In fixing an engine, you think of what the problem is (rough idle), what can cause it (plugged fuel injectors, vacuum leak, exhaust leak), and slowly determine which one is the culprit (probably not the fuel system, goes just fine 75 down the freeway. Oh, that vacuum line is disintegrating. Good job, Toyota). They all follow a similar pattern of identifying what the problem is, what physical manifestations can actually cause that problem, and then eliminating them one by one. This involves looking at the whole picture to narrow it down. This is not something I learned in school, I just figured it out growing up. I've found friends that don't necessarily know anything about computers, but are mechanically inclined, think similarly to how I do. I do have an innate desire to understand how everything works, and this definitely helps me understand what can physically cause the problem. That said, I did just take an Intro to Math Thought, for my math degree, and while it didn't really teach problem solving as I described above, it dramatically improved the way I thought about proving things rigorously.