One of the reasons for “gen ed ” classes is to give you exposure to different fields at a time when many students don’t know what they want to do in life. Not everyone goes into college 100% sure they want a CS degree and to be a software engineer or whatever.
One of the reasons they are easy is because they are intro courses at the doorway of an entire field of study that is not lacking in depth or complexity. Intro to CS is also very easy (this is a variable, this is an if statement, this is a while loop), but that doesn’t mean the 400 level OS or AI course is a walk in the park. The same goes for philosophy, physics, biology, chemistry, history, or any other subject you perhaps thought was a joke. The ease of the 100 level course is so it doesn’t scare you away entirely, not because the field is intrinsically easy.
Many students will take that gen ed course and then switch into that major because they found the topic fascinating. You took it and found it dull, which actually did add value to your education because it reaffirmed your choice of your major. Some people aren’t so lucky and pick a career they hate, only to find something they love much later in life.
Anyway, this idea that opencourseware is equivalent to a university education is not true in my experience. From my perspective, learning is a multiplayer activity. My students learn best when they are helping each other, doing group projects, teaching eachother things they’ve just learned, and going through the college experience as a cohort. University isn’t just about the facts in the book or the curriculum. I think if that were true, the University system would have been obviated long ago by open courseware. But that has t happened and it won’t because open courseware is just a projection of a university education, not the full thing.