Over-educated pretty much describes me.
I'm sure that a lot of people in Sydney will know who my ab initio instructor if I say that the first page of my logbook consists of hundreds of circuits, almost all glide approaches. This was good for me - it turned me into a safe pilot - but not into a confident pilot. I was scared of steep turns, of incipient spins, of flying out of balance more than a ball's width. Add to that three years away from flying, and when I came back to flying I was a very nervous pilot, with my head in the cockpit - flying speeds, and watching the AI, etc.
Gliding, and doing some proper spins/unusual attitudes and discovering just how hard it is to spin a lot of aircraft, has given me more confidence in flying nearer to the edges of the envelope. But it's also led me to realise that lots of instructors have been teaching time honoured techniques without necessarily understanding the basic sciences and why. In my day job I love thinking about how to translate basic science knowledge into understanding what is going on with the patient, and I've been blessed with many good teachers who both know their basic anatomy and physiology really well, as well as having good technical and patient skills. But I can't expect flight instructors to be surgical professors!