Right, it's less sexy than people think. That was my reaction when taking an Artificial Intelligence class and a Machine Learning class over 10 years ago as an undergrad. I was like, "these are unprincipled hacks". I liked graphics better. There were actual algorithms.

But in college you never get to apply them to real problems. I think if you apply them to real problems you'll have the revelation. Especially when you try other approaches first. But actually applying them requires domain knowledge, data cleaning skills, and programming skills beyond what many people have (certainly myself as an undergraduate).