Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I began this semester with high hopes and a great interest in the subject matter I was going to be learning. As the semester got underway, I got an offer to take a full-time fall work placement, and due to a major change in my financial situation at the end of the summer, I just couldn't say no.

I fully intended to balance both school and work - I've done it in previous semesters where I've only taken a course or two. This semester unfortunately, I also had new family responsibilities that took up a significantly higher portion of my time than I anticipated.

You'll notice I'm only asking to drop one of my two courses, and this simply comes down to the type of coursework in each course. Psychology 100 has a lot of low-stakes, small assignments that I've been able to keep up with pretty well by squeezing them in during breaks at work, or when I get a break in my family responsibilities. Biology 110, however, has high-stakes assignments that require significant amounts of prep work (i.e. research papers). While I'm not a stranger to writing papers, I just haven't been able to give any of the evaluations in the course the time they truly require to reflect my academic ability.

I'm currently a non-degree continuing student in the Faculty of Health Sciences, and I know that if I try to be stubborn and hang on to Biology any longer, it will negatively impact my future academic plans. I'm aware that I should have had the sense to drop the course earlier, but I genuinely enjoy the course material and I kept convincing myself that