I was in a programming class when ChatGPT/CoPilot first came out. I hadn’t started using it yet for classes because I was under the impression that “my work should be my own”. I was the only one in the class who would get 80+ average on quizzes, everyone else got nearly perfect scores. Oh well.
Sounds like you took programming to learn programming while the others took it for a certificate.
I had similar issues for different reasons at university. Some of the subjects I learnt were extremely boring to me and I just didn't focus on them, while others I obsessed about. I learnt the things I wanted to learn, but didn't get the grade I probably could have if that was what I was optimising for.
