Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I would like to have MUSC 171 dropped from my schedule this semester because of the stress it has put on me to fully complete the readings while trying to balance my other courses and my job.
I am currently enrolled in 4 other courses which are quite content heavy, and I am currently working part time in order to pay for my schooling. At the end of last semester, I enrolled in MUSC 171 as my one elective as I have a strong interest in the history of music. I enjoyed the first week of class as the first lecture was interesting and the professor was very nice. The problem I have is that each week, we have mandatory textbook readings that can be upwards of 80-90 pages. With my busy schedule, I have not been able to complete the readings and it has been putting a lot of stress on my mental health while also affecting my sleep schedule. With my other classes, I’m able to find ways to work through the content quickly, however, with the textbook readings it takes me several hours to read through all of the content and even at that point, I am only able to retain a small portion of the material. There has been multiple nights where I have stayed up until 3am reading the textbook knowing I have to wake up at 8am the next morning for a chemistry lab or pharmacology class. Currently, I do not believe that I will be able to obtain a good mark in the class because of that fact that I have been unable to learn all of the material. I worry that if I am unable to get the course dropped, the extra content and the added stress will hinder my ability to perform well in my other subjects, as well as get a quality nights rest as I’ll be forced to stay up very late, especially going into exam season.