Many (perhaps most?) students at traditional LACs have broad intellectual interests, If that is the case, then distribution requirements pose no problem; it’s not unusual to fulfill the requirements without even trying.
But it’s true that distribution requirements do force some students at traditional LACs to take courses that they would otherwise avoid. The LACs are clearly hoping for a Happy Outcome here – hopefully the reluctant student will, under the patient guidance of a caring and experienced professor, come to realize that the Disliked Discipline is Not So Bad After All, and will have a potentially life-changing experience of intellectual growth. And while it may sound corny, you can find traditional LAC graduates who will attest that this actually happened to them.
Is a Happy Outcome guaranteed? Realistically, no. I’m sure that you can also find traditional LAC graduates who took certain courses because they had to, hated them despite the best efforts of their professors, and continue to avoid those subjects years later.
So no, the traditional LAC curriculum cannot guarantee a Happy Outcome. But can any curriculum – including the “open curriculum” – offer that guarantee?
Could there be “open curriculum” alumni who made a point of avoiding math and science as undergraduates, and who later found a lack of quantitative fluency to be a hindrance to their careers? Or perhaps others who blew off the humanities, and later in life came to regret skipping the best opportunity of their lives to study the works of Shakespeare or Bach?
I don’t know. But it wouldn’t surprise me.