I left with the certainty that I would never take a math class again, and a lack of desire to explore other scientific fields for fear that I would have a similar experience.

That is one of the most tragic things I can imagine reading. A student who really, genuinely wants to study Maths, just for its own sake... and is dissuaded from doing so by myopic, short-sighted, inane policies. It makes you wonder "could you fuck up education any worse, if you were intentionally trying?"

On the other hand though... I believe a student with enough self motivation can overcome those inane department policies and learn the Maths by pulling in outside resources. Yes, it's more work, and yes maybe it's not "fair" that you have to do that in addition to attending (and paying for!) a class. But it's possible.

Consider the availability of free resources like Khan Academy, Paul's Online Math Notes, hours and hours of Youtube videos from people like Professor Leonard, Gibert Strang, etc. One can also often find problem sets with solutions by just Googling around and finding previous years course websites for various courses that have been taught at universities all around the world.

There are also online forums where you can go to get your answers validated, or get additional explanations about Maths problems. They vary in the extent to which they accept "do my homework for me" style questions, but almost any site will acknowledge somebody who has put in some work, come up with an (possibly incorrect) answer and says "Can somebody help me understand what's going on here?"

Examples:

* https://www.reddit.com/r/learnmath/

* https://www.reddit.com/r/cheatatmathhomework/

* https://www.reddit.com/r/MathHelp/

* https://www.physicsforums.com/

* https://math.stackexchange.com (note: but not so much Mathoverflow, which is more for research level Maths and is not a good place for straight up "do my homework" style questions at all)

And if one is willing to pay a bit, the Schaum's Outlines books and similar books provide a huge catalog of worked problems, along with problems and solutions. There's also Brilliant.org and other paid educational resources for Maths that can supplement ones university course(s). One can also look into hiring a personal tutor as an option.

Many (most? all?) universities also have something like a "math lab" or "learning center" or something where students can go for individual tutoring and additional support. My experience (albeit dated now) leads me to believe that these are probably drastically under-utilized.

Should universities do a better job with introductory Maths courses? Almost certainly. But I'd encourage anybody dealing with this to dig in and try to overcomes such shortcomings by using other available resources as well.

EDIT: inspired by @skywardavocado's answer, I also wanted to add that old-fashioned "study groups" are another valuable arrow in the ole quiver. If you join up with 2, 3, 5, whatever, of your peers to study together, chances are that somebody in the group will understand the thing that the others are struggling with, and can explain it. I didn't do a lot of this in college myself, probably to my detriment. But to the extent that I did occasionally join a study group, I'd say they can be wildly helpful.