Some years ago a midwestern med school wanted to determine if physics
should be required for entering students. They decided to ask their
current students if physics helped them in med school. The result, as
with so many surveys, was 50-50, that is about half said it helped and
half said it did not. However, they were wise enough to also ask if
students had had physics in college. Factoring in that piece showed that
most of the students who said physics was not important had had physics,
and most who said it was important had not.
This could be interpreted in a number of ways, I tend to think that the
physics experience was subliminal, that is it provided another way of
thinking about things that students could use. They were aware of it,
but the others were clearly aware of not having it.