I, too, have often been amazed at interviewing and working with CS grads who can't seem to correctly think abstractly about a problem, breaking it apart into sensible constituent parts, and then productively attacking the problem. Sometimes, they seem unable to just start working on the matter, and instead get lost in thinking up the most creative and novel ways they could solve it with some new technical thing.
I studied history and philosophy in college/grad school.
That sounds like it would be common under pressure. If you have 45 minutes to do something, it could really mess someone's thinking up. Even being nervous or not sleeping well the night before probably has a big effect on performance.
I studied history and philosophy in college/grad school.