As for education and harder classes, I would add, I changed majors and schools at Purdue several times. I was never an engineering major, but I was in the school of Science as a math /computer science major and took the basic chemistry 2 semesters and calculus 4 semesters. Those were very tough courses. I switched to become an education major. and some of those courses were easier than my senior high classes. As a freshmen, you can take a foreign language, math for education majors, English, psychology, music appreciation, and a swimming class and bowling and be considered a full time student working toward your degree. and if you had a foreign language in high school and didn't test out, the first three semesters at Purdue are a piece of cake as are the math courses for education majors. Rather than trying to test out, I took the classes for the easy A's. music theory and philosophy are also very nice, easy courses to take as are all of the swimming classes.
if you are an elite athlete, and only plan to be a one and done, you can find a very easy academic workload in many of the majors at Purdue that are not part of the Science, Pharmacy, Management and Engineering schools. Eugene Parker was in several of my classes. He'd show up the first day and for the final. Double standard ?