While I agree with that I think one glaring difference is also the money. To really learn you want to test out different designs and stuff. For MechE, this can cost A LOT. For example to build a complex device that does something interesting the prototype parts can easily costs as much as a capable laptop or more. And the first one probably won't work ...
Still, it's a shame I think that the open source community is so week because there is very advanced software out there, e.g. France has open source SW that was used to design nuclear reactors. But the community is just not there.
Now I'm thinking if there's an easy way to just give all transactions with metadata to chatgpt and let it tag everything. This would be great!