I do think that's one of the reasons it's easier to do in physics. You're taught to see math as a language and therefore need to interpret it. With that in mind who cares if you memorize formulas and can churn out some algorithmic computation. You'll memorize formulas "accidentally" as you use them frequently. But if you don't know how to interpret the math you're completely fucked and frankly probably won't do well as a physicist. Much of the job is translating back and forth.

I actually loved my classical mechanics class. The professor was really good and in the homeworks he'd come up with creative problems. The hardest part was always starting. Once you could get the right setup then you could churn away like any other (maybe needing to know a few tricks here and there).

Coming over to CS I was a bit surprised how test based things were. I'm still surprised how everyone thinks you can test your program to prove its correctness. Or that people gravely misinterpret the previous sentence as "don't write tests" rather than "tests only say so much"