So, my question is why is programming coming easy for some people whereas it comes hard or never comes for others?
I think you may also find Physics interesting if you had the entire physics lab for yourself and you could tinker with stuff. Same goes for electronics, except that it is way safer to tinker with than physics (high voltages are always dangerous though) and way cheaper.
The last possibility is simply that you have a talent for it, call it whatever you want. Some people are just naturally born coders - see for example John Carmack bio for an example.
Whether or not your FizzBuzz runs is at best loosely coupled to taking class notes and reading the text.
Whether or not FizzBuzz runs correlates to time at the computer writing code.
In my experience, people tend to default to what comes easy. So people who are good at taking notes and reading textbooks are likely to try to pass a programming class by taking notes and reading textbooks.
Also in my experience, people try to avoid the unfamiliar. So people who are good at taking notes and reading textbooks are likely to avoid the unfamiliar territory of sitting at the computer.
But, plenty of academically inclined people are good at programming. It helps to grow up in a culture where not being academic is more ok. Like the US.
Good luck.
The academia can also throw in many moronic notions of "how you SHOULD be programming" which is only a detriment really since how academics think you should programm has no relevance to how programming is like in the real world.
Academical indoctrination and useless baggage basicaly.
Academically inclined people, esp without significant world experience, are often used to things coming fairly easily to them and often self select to give up when immediate (and possibly self affirming) results are not on the near horizon.
So, reasonable talent plus persistance can easily win the day.