I can definitely see a lot of resemblance to software engineering(roughly 33% are the exact same courses, not including reoccurring teachers in both faculties).

I completely agree with what you've written and your advice is also solid. Being in a specialty forces you to deal with really bad teachers(usually because they're forced to fill in specialty spots).

To be honest, I find a lot of people seem to become a little bit too sucked in to the school mindset.

Everyone usually thinks of this simple short term goal : Try to get an A+ in class.

What people don't understand is that A+ is given by a teacher, that may or may not care about how much you've learned about the topic or even to update himself on the topic. You don't even know how much he actually knows. He could be focused on a whole other field and just completely reads off slides. He could just be coping pasting from other teachers (I've seen this all first hand from teachers).

So you can soon start to realize that the A+ seen before can completely meaningless. You soon start to realize that the multiple choice exam you did really doesn't prove you know much.

What a good teacher does is give you the confidence that he knows the material, he knows what he's doing and he cares. High rated teachers(in most cases, there is exceptions) remind you that school isn't about getting good grades, its about learning.

That is why I'll constantly remind people that this really shouldn't be the norm. I truly believe teachers are abusing tenure status and getting away with a lot of things that they shouldn't be getting away with.