There really needs to be two different general chemistry tracks, one for the students that are thinking about studying chemistry and one for everyone else. Where I went to college the general chemistry classes were very much designed with the assumption that the students taking them would go on to study chemistry. Despite this actually being a minority of the students taking them. For those of us that did study chemistry, I think they prepared us well for subsequent course and lab work. For those that didn't and just needed to satisfy the requirement, I imagine they were very tedious.
I have a degree from a state school in chemistry, it's been worth it for me. In part because the GI Bill paid for it, but it also landed me several jobs writing software where domain knowledge is required and not so easy to come by without formal education.
I learned back in 2000 at Ft. Huachuca, it took about 30 8 hour days for me to get through the basic Morse course, I don't remember how long it took to get through the rest of it. I do remember getting a certificate, the Samuel B Morse award, for copying at slightly above the required speed which I think was something like 22 groups a minute.