Views expressed in opinion columns are the author’s own.

You’ve probably heard about the infamous Gio Managadze and his rise to stardom, whether you learned of his tale at a party or while scrolling through your Twitter feed. Gio claimed to have dropped out of the University of Maryland and intentionally failed all his classes two weeks before he was crowned valedictorian at graduation.

The story seemed too wild to be true, and it was. This university doesn’t have a valedictorian, and Gio wasn’t set to speak at graduation. Nevertheless, his original 3,000-word LinkedIn post explaining why he dropped out divided readers. Unsurprisingly, some claimed that dropping out of school right before you graduate was, for lack of a better word, stupid. Some agreed with Gio when he claimed that lectures were unnecessary and taught him nothing during his college career.

It’s not news that skipping lectures can become a habit for many college kids, and for high-functioning, independent students, it’s possible to absorb textbook material and get good grades while rarely attending lecture. But Gio’s view that college is a worthless series of obligations is a privileged fallacy. It’s a mindset students use to excuse poor habits. Not only is this mindset unwise, it’s ungrateful.

First, lecture is not simply an auditory recitation of the textbook. Whether a professor is the most nonlinear, distracted storyteller or the most analytic, information-driven researcher, they have still likely been a respected mind in their field for longer than you have been interested in your major. They have experience and wisdom, and they have more to say than what is simply outlined on the page of a textbook.

Skipping lecture because you went too hard at Rails the night before actively rejects the experience you are paying for. Gio and many like him claim that lecture is a waste of time and tuition, but skipping lecture is a lost opportunity to get clarification, feedback and guidance.

Second, if you, like Gio, believe that college is nearly worthless because lecture wasn’t especially useful to you, you have failed to take advantage of the opportunities afforded to you. College is not just costly because of lectures. Tuition allows you to join a community featuring clubs, volunteer organizations, internships, jobs and more. It’s difficult to make these important connections outside of a university setting, and to dismiss your degree as a waste of time is to not understand all that comes with it.

Third, even if college was only a way to a strong GPA and a diploma, you should still put everything you’ve got into getting a stacked diploma and a GPA you’re proud of. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 33.4 percent of Americans 25 or older report having a completed bachelor’s degree. If you’re getting a bachelor’s degree, you are in the minority.

Gio’s story was fake, but he was trying to make a point. He was accusing this university of being a negligible part of his education. In reality, if you are a college student who considers college unimportant, you have failed to take advantage of it. We can be critical and work to improve institutions of higher learning, but we cannot forget that it is up to us to make our degree worth it.

Erin Hill is a sophomore psychology major. She can be reached at erin.mckendry.hill@gmail.com.