Maybe that has to do more with the quality of humanities education that you have been exposed to? Of course, you don't need a university to learn computer science, math, or physics; I'd argue even less so than for history, for instance. The weakness of a cirriculum defined by the student is that it isn't informed by those that have expertise. It's a disadvantage that is very difficult to compensate for.
Exactly. We have a wealth of information available, but I can tell you, from the perspective of a CS major, it's hard to discern good info from bad at the beginning of your studies. I like to think of knowledge as connections between nodes of information. If you are unfamiliar with a subject, you have to skip around, adding 'unnecessary' nodes to your network of information and missing the important connections between those nodes. A good professor and curriculum helps weed out the unnecessary info and lets you focus on the important stuff.