All excellent point, but I'd like to add that it also forces you to do your own research the correct way, by surveying the current state of academic research an

All excellent point, but I'd like to add that it also forces you to do your own research the correct way, by surveying the current state of academic research and then finding and incorporating scholarly sources into your own arguments. Every academic essay I ever wrote after high school started with a trip to the library and JSTOR. I had to guide my own education instead of learning from the teacher and then repeating what had been taught.