That still have nothing to do with your science education. For example to understand the sciences one needs at least some math. One cannot even understand basic physics without calculus. And basic physics is used by most of the sciences. I live in a state that I thought had a fairly decent education program. But I was shocked when I talked to a person that was going to college to become a physics teacher. I asked him how he was doing on calculus and he said "Oh, we don't need to take that"
I was speechless. One really cannot understand physics without it. Without it one is just memorizing formulas without understanding how they were derived. If one has had calculus and knows what basic principals are involved the formulas of basic physics can be worked out by oneself. One does not need to remember the formulas for how fast a ball falls in gravity, or how long it takes it to fall. Or what its potential energy is at an elevation. All of those can be worked out from just one formula.
So to you what looks like memorization of formulas etc. to one that understands the basics they are easily understood facts.