It was neither of those. The issue was that they put effort into following the path laid out in front of them, e.g. getting good grades in the required classes. They did not take enough responsibility/agency over their own paths to figure out what skills they would later need, and acquire those skills.
(A relevant point which wasn’t in the post: the project was in senior year, and all of them ended up going into data science after graduation, as did I. I knew years before that data science was hot and in high demand at the time and would likely suit me well; I explicitly optimized for it. I don’t think any of them planned that far ahead at all.)
It was neither of those. The issue was that they put effort into following the path laid out in front of them, e.g. getting good grades in the required classes. They did not take enough responsibility/agency over their own paths to figure out what skills they would later need, and acquire those skills.
(A relevant point which wasn’t in the post: the project was in senior year, and all of them ended up going into data science after graduation, as did I. I knew years before that data science was hot and in high demand at the time and would likely suit me well; I explicitly optimized for it. I don’t think any of them planned that far ahead at all.)