It happens every semester: Students flood the Cashier’s Office to file for “W’s” on their transcripts.

Monday will be the last day for students to drop classes and still receive “W’s” instead of settling for whatever grades they will get in their classes at the end of the semester.

It’s convenient, but not only does setting the drop date four weeks before the semester is over not teach students to be responsible adults, it is a hassle for both students and professors on campus.

Any student who has tried to add a class will testify to the frustration of being crammed at the back of a standing-room-only classroom and not be able to add.

The reality, however, is that everybody knows that by the end of the semester the student count will drop so significantly that there will be more empty seats than the class will know what to do with.

Added to the classroom frustrations are the parking woes of every student on campus.

Depending on the time of classes, parking may be easier to find, but the majority of students who attend class in the morning struggle to find parking.

However, the day after the drop date, parking spots suddenly free up and parking is no longer the dreaded daily ritual it had been for morning students.

It is ludicrous to have the drop date be four weeks before the semester is over.

Students should be responsible enough to already know their grades in the class earlier during the semester and know whether they can pass it or not.

The drop date needs to be moved up to the 10th week of class instead of the 12th week.

The students who, a few weeks into the semester, realize that the class they have chosen is not what they wanted would have dropped early on anyway.

By the midpoint of the semester the slackers of the class would already be lagging behind the rest of the class and should be forced to make the decision whether to drop the class or work harder to catch up.

Parking spots could be freed up earlier during the semester this way and professors would not have to spend so much of their time grading papers and tests for a class that will only have half its students by the end of the semester.

Moving the drop date up will lessen class-adding and parking frustrations, as well as encouraging students to take their academic efforts more seriously, improving the college’s reputation and overall benefitting everyone on campus.