The excuses for skipping class vary from ludicrous to reasonable.

If you’re feeling super lazy and the last thing you want to do is go to class—hey, it happens—your excuses will lack common sense. You’ll skip because it might rain, you miss your dog, you’re not feeling pretty, or some other laughable idea.

There are also what I call the legitimate, or reasonable excuses.

You want to sleep in longer (or take a nap) instead of going to class because you have to study late at night.

You can read the PowerPoint slides online and get the same information you need without going to class.

The professor doesn’t check for attendance so there’s no consequences if you don’t show up.

You haven’t worked out in weeks so you have to go to the gym instead of class. It’s a fair trade.

You can make a case for these kinds of excuses and others in the ballpark of reason. It’s easy to miss class when you justify it. (It’s easy to do anything when it’s justified.)

But, I think anyone who skips class is misguided.

Because whether you have a legitimate reason or you’re lazy, I’m going to hit you with the truth: skipping class hurts you more than it helps you. Here’s exactly why.

Skipping Class Makes Things Worse

These are the fun problems that come from skipping college classes, in no particular order.

First, rarely is all the information you need for an assignment provided without additional information from a professor. Whether it’s a project, paper, or exam, during class is when a professor often takes time to give context, helpful instruction, and dictate what they’re looking for. If you’re not there, that’s no extra help for you.

Plus, you don’t get any freebie test answers if you’re not at class. You know what I mean, right?

When the professor expands on a topic, then says, “Take notes because this will be on the exam.” Only the people who attend class come away with that helpful insight. (Or when they deliberately tell you a specific question and answer on the exam, only the students there are lucky.)

You also miss when your teacher says, “Don’t worry about this unit, it won’t be on the exam.” If you miss that day, you’ll but putting hours of valuable study time into terms that you don’t need to know.

Many students who often miss class, sometimes only one class, are sure to waste more time trying to catch up than if they went to class. Because not only do they have to learn what they went over in class, they first have to spend time knowing what to go over.

And it’s extremely difficult to get a quality letter of recommendation if you routinely skip class with all of your professors. At best, your letters will be average and bland. At worst, you won’t have any professors agree to write one.

For all of these reasons, and some others I’m sure I left out, if you like yourself, you will go to every class you can.

So while there’s plenty of reasons to skip class and the motivation behind each one is that it will make your life easier, if only for a little, now you know that premise is untrue.

Skipping class makes your life much more difficult and stressful. In other words, going to class makes your life much easier.

You’ll Win When You Go To Class

Did you catch all of that? Although going to class can be a drag at times, just remember the consequences of not going to class are always a losing bargain.

I must say that this entire blog post is assuming you want to succeed in college and not live in constant stress. If you don’t want to do well for yourself and want to skip class, enjoy the stress and good luck to you. (You need it!)

And here’s one last negative. Skipping class when you don’t feel like going sets a bad precedent for your future. Because after you graduate, not going to work on the days you don’t feel like it also sounds good, until you lose your job, lose your income, and become a bum.

College is the perfect time to establish successful habits. Start today by creating the habit of going to every class, regardless of your feelings.

Your college experience will be better off for it.