[T]he students who struggle in technical courses are those who skip
    the insight-developing phase. They capture concepts in their notes
    and they study by reproducing their notes. Then, when they sit down
    for the exam and are faced with problems that apply the ideas in
    novel ways, they have no idea what to do. They panic. They do
    poorly. They proclaim that they are “not math people.” They switch
    to a philosophy major.

This may well be true, but if it is, these students are setting themselves up for a fall: if they wish to be any good at all at philosophy then they will need to cultivate precisely this skill. Much of philosophy consists of taking a general set of tools (concepts) and applying them to different situations. It isn't terribly fruitful approach unless one understands those concepts in the first place.