UVA is a heavily Liberal Arts college. (or at least, it was when I was looking a generation ago). That means that there are a lot of distribution requirements and you're going to be doing the soft fuzzy useless sounding things like English rather than going through blindered to things that will be in your major/make you money right out of college. But learning to write means that you need to learn to think critically of what to write.
It's not a Technically oriented college, though it does teach the sciences, but I wouldn't go there (and didn't) for Engineering. That's what VA Tech is for, though the weather is worse, the campus not as nice, and not quite as prestigious.
The generally Liberal Arts system in the US is a strong contrast to the European system, where you often start focusing on a few subjects at the high school level, and then apply to a degree program where you have very few "outside the major" choices. My wife didn't take math or science after she was 12 (but she took languages), Oldest 2 kids are down to 3 or 4 subjects at the high school level (One is doing the Bio/Chem/Physics A levels, one did Phys/Math/Further Math/Geography). The last incidence of anything not STEMish was GCSE/Junior Cert/~15yr old level.