At this year's May commencement, there will be fewer SF State students walking in their cap and gown due to a new procedure that requires students to finish all of their requirements before participating in the graduation ceremony.

An e-mail was sent to all department chairs, deans and advisors telling them that the Registrar's Office will no longer accept graduation applications for undergraduate students who still have additional courses that will be completed in the fall.

The policy has always been there, but this is the first time they are enforcing it to decrease the workload for both advisors and students, and to let the students who actually will be graduating know of their approval sooner, assistant registrar Julie Vaquilar said.

"The commencement is a celebration for all those who have finished," Vaquilar said. "Not for those who still have a few courses to complete."

Those who will be participating in the commencement on May 23 are students who completed all of their courses in August 2008 or in January, May or August 2009.

The graduation application deadline for the commencement is Feb. 20. But each department may have their own specific deadline. For more information on graduation, go on their website at http://www.sfsu.edu/commencement/.

Students who wish to participate in the May commencement but still have additional courses that can only be taken in the fall, will have to file for graduation in the fall and be a part of the May 2010 commencement.

This new procedure also applies to each individual department on campus, according to administrative Monique Brumfield.

Joseph Tamayo, a health education student, only has one class left before he can graduate, but wasn't able to get into the class because he couldn't take two classes at the same time due to the way his major sequence is set up.

"It's really unfortunate," Tamayo said. "I just want to graduate and that ceremony finalizes everything."

Tamayo, 29, will probably have to take the class in the fall and participate in the May 2010 commencement.

"I don't want to come back. I'm not even going to be on campus [next] spring," Tamayo said.

In the past, graduating students were allowed to participate in the commencement if they have not finished all of their requirements.

"When students apply for graduation, it means it will be their last semester here," Vaquilar said.

But if students have exceptional circumstances that require them to participate in the May 2009 commencement, they may submit a waiver of college regulations to the Registrar's Office.

It has been a difficult year for graduating students to get into classes they need in order to graduate in May.

Jessica Chui, 21, would have been able to graduate this semester, but wasn't able to get into two of her classes.

"Its frustrating because I have to stay an extra semester," said Chui, a child and adolescent development major. "[The tuition is] not cheap."

Barbie Savage, an art major, wasn't able to get into a class she needed at the beginning of the semester. But fortunately Savage's teacher allowed her to add the class because she was a graduating senior.

But Savage, 22, did express her disappointment on the fact that graduating seniors don't always have priorities in classes they need to graduate at the end of the semester.

"It's really unfortunate and we are trying to use what we learn here and [the school] won't let us leave," Savage said.