Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: In the second week of the Winter 2018 semester, I met with a Distance Studies academic advisor and was advised to switch into the Online DEVS program. However, that was later deemed impossible to obtain before my desired graduation date of April 2019 due to the fact that a core course was not being offered until past that date. The next week, I was advised to aim for either a LIBS degree or an ENGL degree, however, having passed the date to add/drop courses, my current course load was irrelevant to the new degree plan, as they were added the previous week (before the deadline) to satisfy DEVS requirements. This left me extremely frustrated, resulting in a lack of motivation.

Concurrently with that, I was not on needed ADD/ADHD medication, which caused concentration to be nearly impossible. The prescription was finally refilled on February 08, 2018. At this point, I was nearly a month behind in course work. Along with this, I was experiencing family issues with an ill family member who later passed away. My pre-existing anxiety and depression conditions got amplified after her passing, as at that time I was also not on my medication for my anxiety. The prescription for my anxiety medication was also refilled on February 08, 2018; however, the effects of that medication take a few weeks to kick in. As well, a month later, on March 15, 2018 it was noted that an even higher dosage was required, meaning that the earlier prescriptions were not effective in their full capacity.

In order to attempt to mitigate these effects on my academic career, I started to regularly see my health care professional and began taking my medications again and began to see a personal counsellor. My first appointment with him was on March 06, 2018. Upon consultation with the counsellor, I was advised to put my mental health above my academics for the semester. It is because of this that I would like to drop my courses at this point in time. Currently being on the medications and actively seeing a counsellor, plans have been made to continue utilizing these resources throughout the summer (and beyond) in order to prepare a more suitable approach for my future academic endeavours in the Fall of 2018. I believe that dropping my courses will allow me to fully focus on my mental health and better understand and navigate my degree options for the future.