I graduated in 2009 and in my engineering courses calculators were disallowed for similar reasons. I have found that courses that disallow calculators generally have the problems set up in a more elegant manner. E.g done properly the results end up in whole numbers or radicalize well rather than just an incoherent string of decimals. Courses that were focused on physical phenomenon like device electronics allowed calculator use because multiplying with Planck's constant by hand gets old quickly.