I don't love all skeumorphic design, but having spent over a decade doing UX testing on various interfaces at a university, using gradients and other visual effects to mimic real-world elements can be vastly superior to flat design. This is especially true for new or non-savvy users (which includes a shitton of college students, despite many people believing otherwise).

I remember very clearly testing interfaces of various iPhone apps (and iOS, and even some MS products) after Ives made his "Skeumorphism is dead!" proclamation, and it was sad how users struggled with usability -- particularly of buttons -- because "I didn't know I could click there." Fortunately there was some backpedaling involved.