I think a but source of this issue is the house amount of unrelated classes I must take in college. I'm very lazy when it comes to things I have absolutely no interest in. I think I can provide some useful insight.
Right now I'm at New Jersey Institute of Technology. I am in the Ying Wu college of computing science. After this semester (at the start of the third year) I will have no more computer science classes I need to take for my degree. I personally believe I am very competent with the skills required to be a computer scientist in the real world (Software engineering, system design, managing, etc).
The remaining classes I have are as follows.
* "Software Architecture" where you don't actually need to write software. I think you just learn about PHP or something from what a friend told me. (One of my professors said you didn't need to write any code for the class)
* Proofs where you just learn discrete math.
* Calc 1, 2, Linear, Diff EQ (in that order)
* Physics 1 & 2
* ~ 2 hum classes
* 2 PE classes
* 4 Non-CS courses in lower level (easier like EE100) and upper level (harder EE300) course numbers
The only CS related thing I need to do is my senior project which is just to write some software and hand it in with a write up. This will be very easy for me. I'm not going to name names but one of my friends who did this submitted something that I was able to write in a weekend. Theirs was less polished and broke during the presentation (mine is still running). Their write up was good though. So they passed and got their degree.
I've basically got a laundry list of projects on my github page of projects I've done that would work as a senior project (let alone what I've been writing for the research group I'm working for).
I've also TA'd for a CS class here. Both times my class was in the top 10% scoring similarly to the honors sections. Not all my work but I like to think my explanations of the topics helped.
So why am I still here? Why do I need those check boxes? I'm basically stuck doing BS that I suck at because they want me to be "well rounded". I don't think that's 1) a reasonable goal to expect, 2) what college is for, 3) what im paying for.
The reason I have to take calc 1 and physics 1 still is because I failed my first year. Only those too classes. Even with 2 Fs on my transcript my CS classes kept my GPA at a ~2.9. Funnily enough I'm working in the physics department writing software for physics PhDs and talking with them on a reasonable level of understanding about their research even though I couldn't pass Physics 1. I'm also the treasurer for the Ham radio club (I'm KD2JAO and I'll be at Dayton or wherever this next hamfest). I have a pretty ok understanding of propegation and radio and I'm currently studying for my general. But I couldn't pass Physics 1.
Why? I think a large amount of reasons.
The first and most prominent one is I don't care about what was taught. It was all projectile motion which is asinine and boring.
Second was I have a life and other classes I cared about that were far more interested. I could either do well in my classes I liked or do meh in all my classes. I also had a lot of family troubles (death, divorce, moving, etc)
The final is more technical and out of scope for this conversation.
If we removed unimportant classes from the curriculum we wouldn't have this "I never get to sleep BS" and the times you would loose sleep would be because you love what you're working on. (I stayed awake in bed staring at my cieling some nights thinking of better solutions to my CS programming assignments assignment)