Courses such as these teach you what you need to think about. Not HOW to think. There are some people that just naturally think in a logical and analytical fashion. Programming and other IT skills just come naturally to them. The Comp Sci degree will nurture them and help them to hone these skills. If you don't have the natural skills, but the desire and drive, you can still excel and be good at it. Just not a 'wunderkind'.

The paper it gives you is a stepping stone to bigger things, but don't delude yourself and think that there isn't a high school dropout out there that couldn't code an AI from scratch that you could never dream of, just because he didn't bother to take a degree course.