Having a few years as an Assistant Professor and Advisor included in my resume, it's not always the case that lower-level, common-core courses are "easy".

Quite to the contrary, lower-level content-area courses tend to be easier, while the common-core courses are often more difficult to obtain high grades in. Particularly problematic is English. Many students arrive on campus fully prepared for high school English Comp and within weeks find their practiced writing style not in agreement with an instructor's preferences. Once the student adapts, they generally recover by semester's end. However, they're often forced into a second-semester course with another instructor and the exercise in frustration begins again. Often, the only positive outcome may be the ability to adapt quickly.

There's a reason we often considered Freshman Science, Math, and English as "weed-out" courses. Some students inevitably fall into the probation-suspension cycle and are gone before they attain Sophomore status. In the 1990s, it was relatively common for 50% of a Freshman cohort to be gone from campus within three semesters.

"Weed-out" or not, these classes do become indicators of later academic success. Someone who's scraping through these lower-level classes often does so because of inefficient or absent study habits. Dedicated study - obviously - is essential to passing more difficult, upper-level, content-area courses.