The mention of Maple brings back vivid memories of freshmen year of college when the math department decided to use the software as part of instruction and no one understood how to use it. There was a near revolt by the students.
Welcome to engineering. That's what we do. It's all we do.
"You know so much about computers, it's easy for you to figure it out!"
Anyway, as far as “learn the tools they want to teach the students how to use” goes, I dunno, hard to say. I wouldn’t be that surprised to hear that some department head got the wrong-headed idea that students needed to learn more practical tools and skills, shit rolled downhill, and some professor got stuck with the job.
Usually professors aren’t expert tool users after all, they are there for theory stuff. Hopefully nobody is expecting to become a vscode expert by listening to some professor who uses eMacs or vim like a proper grey-beard.
Reminds me of when I was able to climb aboard an old steam locomotive and spent a wonderful hour tracing all the pipes and tubes and controls and figuring out what they did.
A good engineering college doesn't actually teach engineering. They teach how to learn engineering. Then you teach yourself.