I'm guilty, and I feel guilty. I've made one of those mistakes that they say we all make, but that I always secretly thought was a lie. Yes, I have participated in one of my generation's greatest achievements and greatest downfalls: I have Sparknoted books for English.

It starts out as any other day. I'll be happily reading Silas Marner and sipping on a homemade latte, as I can often be spotted doing when I'm alone in the apartment. But then something happens--I get bored. And it all goes downhill from there.

I know this happens to everyone at some point. We can't always be interested in everything we have to learn for school, even though some of us come close to doing so. But just because something's boring doesn't mean we have the right to ignore it. I mean, imagine if we could just ignore every person we found remotely boring by shutting them out with headphones while they were talking to us. Seems kind of rude, right?

Well, the same should apply to seemingly boring ideas. We can't just replace people with Netflix, and we shouldn't be able to do the same to new information.

When I actually read those 100 pages for class, I feel so much better than if I look up a plot summary, and not just because I know I'll do better on the quiz. I know that there was a reason I did the work, that my work will benefit me in some tangible way before long. And this applies to every subject.

For English, I'll be able to seem far more pretentious than before with my new-found not-at-all-well-rounded grasp of 19th century British society. For government, I'll be able to make more informed decisions while voting to change the world around me. For statistics, I'll finally comprehend how to put numbers in place of letters, a worthwhile skill in any work environment.

Although I kid about some, all classes are probably there for a reason, and even if you hate them, try to get the best out of that hatred.

You know those people in movies who always make fun of old people for rambling? Yeah, those kids are never the ones who end up finding buried treasure or the path to true happiness. The ones who do are the ones who take an active interest in the monotone voice of a 74-year-old actor pretending to suffer from dementia and learn from him.

These 74-year-old actors represent professors (painfully accurately in some cases), and we're either the jerks that make fun or the jerks who make fun but also try to learn something.

So let's stop Sparknoting and start experiencing things for ourselves. Stranger Things can wait, but that reading about Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy goals shouldn't have to.

Shortcuts sound great in theory, but what they really do is keep you from experiencing all the awesome stuff that's along the path. And all that awesome stuff, like it or not, is paid for by your tuition.