Counterpoint: it's not OK to skip the math with cryptography. You may not need to power through all of Silverman's curve book (though: I don't know for sure that's true, which is why I don't call myself a cryptography engineer), but you have to get as deep into the math as you can in order to safely use cryptographic algorithms.
If you're math-avoidant, stick with high-level abstractions like NaCL and TLS. There's nothing wrong with that!
A professor talking about and demonstrating cryptography at the level of individual algorithms is doing their class a disservice if they say "none of the math will be on the test". The algorithms are enough to put something together that seems like it works; the math is what you need to find out if your resulting system actually does work. It's where many of the fun bug classes live.
