The most amazing part of this to me is that it's possible to code for a decade get through a CS degree and be a research assistant without testing or even using source control! I'd probably have gone insane trying to debug under those circumstances.
Though, worth noting, source control is on the Joel Test specifically because at least some engineers needed outside ammo to bludgeon their employers into the 20th century. It was very much NOT the case in ~2000 that you could just assume any professional engineering team would be using source control.
It's a jungle out there.