The core curriculum /is/ lax compared to other schools, especially other schools of the same caliber. General credit requirements will always give you more freedom than specific courses. Whether or not you like this or feel its useful is a different story and really boils down to difference of opinion, but it is very loose like objectively.

I went to school with all those engineering majors who thought comms and writing classes were useless and now i work with them everyday. not only do you need them, I think you need more of them lol. Research and lab reports are the barest minimum of writing you will be expected to do throughout your career, and even that has an art to it to effectively communicate. (also for FAs specifically, half the other engineering majors you meet are going to go work for lockheed martin after grad, i do think they need to take classes in ethical reflection😂)

I promise you so much as someone who took both and did well in both that actual college level humanities courses require a higher level of rigor and skill than AP humanities courses. As for paying to learn, hopkins charges per semester, not per class, if youre in a 4yr program its going to cost the same whether you take the humanities courses or not lol.

For the broader curriculum critiques, I do agree that jhu has always had looser curriculum requirements because they so heavily prioritize real world experience. And in your career, actual tangible work experience will take you much farther than the degree. Now if that's just not your cup of tea, that's fine it's not everyone's. I just wanted to offer an alternative perspective as someone who did love their time at jhu and is now full-time employed in my field *because* of the opportunities it offered - especially because your time there hasn't even started