I was a mediocre student until 3rd and 4th year undergrad and the one semester of grad school I did. I responded so much better to the freedom to solve problems using the basic engineering principles instead of being tested on those principles without the context.
I know some people are going to read this as "it's not important to learn them when you can just look them up" but that's not what I mean. I agree it's important to know the basics well without having to consult with references. Over time they become second nature. But I'm going to struggle with repeating the basics back to you when they are abstract and when grading depends on my ability to do arithmetic under test conditions or remember the unit circle/special triangles because we are not allowed to use calculators.
I will never not be salty about this unit circle thing. I thought I hated math because I could not memorize this:
Turns out my brain doesn't hold numbers well and I'm actually a wizard at process modeling.