Current student here (CS, so sadly not in your field):
In my case, college/university actually made sure, I and many others would be using Linux as their main system. The computer lab is using Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 mainly) although Windows machines (mostly for beginner courses) and Macs (for stuff like Final Cut Pro and other Apple exclusive software) are available and many courses are either requiring or putting mainline support towards Linux.
Document wise - we were taught LaTeX from day 1 and are expected to have at least the knowledge to utilize the given .cls
files. Sharing documents is rather a free-for-all: When LaTeX is required for the course, either Overleaf or the university git is the choice for group-work, otherwise there aren’t requirements for using .docx
files or other files.
Hope I could give you an insight, although not in your field.
On another post where a web comic showed similar artifacts, I also asked the same question - and concluded that the comic’s resolution was “enhanced”, either by the phone itself (when they saved it from their source) or by a (re)poster. So I think that here it’s the same thing - AI “”“enhancement”“”.