Arts and Sciences = Critical thinking / creativity. Humanities = Critical regurgitation / memorization. Am I missing something here?

I'm an engineering & science major, and I really like the engineering/science/math classes because you actually learn tools you can create amazing things with, make your own designs, get conceptual understandings of fascinatingly complex systems and techniques and logical principles. Basically you use your brain to design a better future.

My required humanities classes (for "educational enrichment") on the other hand are almost laughably stupid, in the sense that everyone who's getting an A in those classes is doing so due to pure memorization skills, and that's about it.

I also find it ironic/sad that it seems the only place where researchers call themselves "scholars" "scholarly" or "intellectuals" are in the humanities. The hard sciences just seem to have less of this verbal back-patting. In my opinion it's because hard sciences actually make significant contributions to the world actively, and therefore generate self-worth from real progress rather than the existential/meaning-of-life crisis faced by humanities professors.

TLDR - A rant about how it seems graduate humanities academia is a bunch of memorization-savants sitting around in a massive circle jerk of back-patting, regurgitation, and a puking up hairy messes of useless over-analytical drivel.

So, as mentioned in the title, I would appreciate getting some views on what I'm missing, because I think I must be missing something very fundamental here. Or feel free to join in my rant :P