I took programming classes before the LLM craze, and I just want to say I felt similarly about people not learning from or understanding what they made. A lot of my classmates were happy to be led by the hand through every assignment or project, but would completely fall apart when asked to make their own solutions.

Part of it I think was motivation. The people who were into programming because computers were their passion, or because they liked building things did better. A lot of people were just taking the class in hopes to get a high-paying job, and those didn't do great even if they did go on to get a degree.

It's a shame because I believe the true wonder of computer programming is the open-ended ability to solve any problem. You don't have to be steered in a particular direction, and if you have an idea that you follow through on you can achieve your goal in any number of ways.

I think LLMs are attractive to students because it points them in a direction they can follow without having to think about it, unfortunately to the detriment of personal growth. They appear all over the place in business because your boss is never going to assign enough time and budget for a project, and the perceived velocity or cost of LLM-driven development is cheaper than hiring enough developers.

In my opinion, if you're in the middle of your degree then this is the exact time you should be avoiding LLMs to learn. Presumably you have access to your professors, mentors, or tutors when you need to understand something, and all of that goes away after graduation.