Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Johanne Bénard,
My name is Jaewoong Moon, a graduating fourth-year Life Sciences specialization student. I am requesting an aegrotat status for LISC426, current topics in sensorimotor neuroscience.

Quantifying my experiences with bipolar depressive disorder have shown that about eighty percent of the time I am experiencing a significantly low mood. This is accompanied by loss of motivation and confusion and dissonance regarding my values and goals that dissolve my sense of self. My emotional weather in the first semester was unstable and bumpy, however, I was able to experience adequate moods due to me being on an antidepressant (Cipralex) among a milieu of other medications. This medication was weened out during the start of the second semester. On top, four other medications had continuously undergone changes in dosage or the medication subtype itself. This and the toll the winter months have on my psyche have tested my stamina day after day. Despite this, I managed to properly keep up with class work and assessments up until mid-March. A prescription medication called Cyroquil has aided in sleep and managing hypomanic episodes, however, its main side effects are drowsiness and loss of energy due to its influence on metabolism (e.g. hyperlipidemia). I had begun taking this starting early March, and the prescribed dosage had increased in mid-March. For the first time, I had let my condition affect my academic performance, starting with a very sub-par presentation in NSCI444 in which I received a 71 on ¿¿ far below my usual standard. As April approached, academic duties piled up, course and graduate scholarship deadlines crept up, and I started to feel suffocated by the knowledge of my responsibilities conflicting with the knowledge of my internal state. This often entails thoughts of self-harm, but I have remained strong enough not to succumb to them.

I hope you can understand that I am having great difficulty allocating energy and attention to a large array of duties I must fulfill. Of note, NSCI850 is a graduate neuroscience course and the final and only assessment is the presentation of a computational model of my creation. This is proving to demand a great deal of time. Thus, I am asking for an AG status on LISC426 to put some ease to my burdened mind. The final assessment of this course involved writing a discussion section for a manuscript chosen by the coordinator. Normally, I believe I would excel at this type of assessment as I am quite creative and am able to assume various vectors of thought when it comes to interpreting the data. However, once I worked up some motivation to begin, as I read the manuscript I visually acknowledged the processing of the words, yet I was unable to hold on to any meaning. Each sentence had to be reread, each paragraph had to be re-summarized, only to forget them all the following day. My entire undergraduate experience has been shaped by the forces of my mental illness and I have grown weary and exhausted. With the finish line on the horizon, all I wish to do is graduate so that my Master¿¿s acceptance requirements are fulfilled. I sincerely hope that my reasons are sufficient for this appeal to be granted.

What I aim to do in the future has always been to master cognitive and behavioral techniques for grounding myself mentally, while regularly consulting with my psychiatrist. The importance of this has surfaced scientifically with quantitative EEG data from the Kingston Institute of Psychotherapy and Neurofeedback. Low delta frequency oscillations in the frontal regions are highly associated with non-relaxed or agitated states, and it permits hyperactive thinking. I am told that if these delta waves can be normalized, my creativity can flourish even more. Therefore, I aim to perfect my meditation regimens, my diet, and to discover and consolidate other methods of mitigating anxiety. I am currently in touch with the Tisarana Buddhist monastery with the hopes of training there for at least 2 weeks. Through this, I wish to become more enlightened and grounded. I also plan on acquiring a job that does not require continuous, rigorous thinking to rest my analytic mind so that once my graduate degree begins, I am refreshed, recharged, and ready to commence my research career.

Sincerely,
Jaewoong Moon