Walking across the stage on graduation day and picking up one little piece of paper is the capstone of four, or sometimes more, years of our lives.

But Baker is leaving some students hanging.

Seniors who have finals scheduled for the last day of finals week will not receive their diplomas as they walk across the stage.

Instead, these students will have to wait a week for their diplomas to be sent in the mail.

The faculty has been given a deadline of noon next Friday to turn in final grades for graduates.

If a faculty member is unable to turn in a final grade before that time, the student must wait for final grades to come in the week after graduation, which means students with a final scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday definitely are out of luck.

This schedule is due to constraints in the academic calendar for the year, but next year finals will end on Thursday and leave more time between finals and graduation.

For the last few years, the calendar has allowed finals to end on Thursday, preventing this problem.

The academic calendar is planned well in advance so this should have been more thought out.

Sure, it’s only a week, but when there’s a week and the postal service between you and the real world, it’s a scary thing.

Baker should have come up with a way for graduates to receive their diplomas when they walk, not make them wait for their diplomas to arrive in the mail.

After all, the diploma is the entire reason for us to come to Baker in the first place.