I was really jealous of that aspect of my girlfriend’s education. Some companies and incubators (recurse center?) are really good at creating this kind of learning, but I don’t know of many traditional universities experimenting with this approach at either the BS or MS level; which IMO a shame.
Also, the skill of receiving and responding constructively to criticism is incredibly underrated, and is something that the good art schools seem to be unusually good at.
The way my girlfriend tells it, it was a tortuous time (for many of the reasons you describe), but it was also very formative and it accelerated her growth dramatically.
It could be adapted to CS/E classes where students were creating something new and most Art professors could probably help run them. There is a definite discipline and culture to running good group critiques.
I experienced four years of group critiques, and really value that as an activity. Unfortunately very few people understand or can appreciate how directly that maps to software development.
My two cents, guidance counselors just need to shut the fuck up when it comes to talking with high-school students. There is so little knowledge about what different careers actually entail that I think it is impossible for high-school students to make informed decisions about what they want to focus on.
While I think getting a BFA was the right choice for me I also think that the school environment could have been much more beneficial and productive than it was (mostly due to students in other majors being disruptive due to their drinking and partying during the week.)