Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am appealing to drop CISC 226 (Winter, 2021). After my father¿¿s passing during high school, there have been reoccurring depressed periods in my life which is what I have been experiencing again since the end of January 2021. I believed that this time would be the same as any other, but possibly because it is my father¿¿s fifth anniversary and adding on the lack of support from social distancing during Covid times, I am being affected harder than usual. Some of the effects of these periods are nihilistic behaviour, where I do not see the point of many of my actions, not just in schoolwork, distancing myself from my peers, and have debilitating existential thoughts. The way I get through these periods is typically by my friends forcing their company on me, reminding myself that I do not want to worry my mother and what I am going through will pass as it has before. I am not the type of person to seek help when needed and I normally try to handle things on my own, but with the recommendation from my professor, I have gone to Student Wellness Services to get mental health support for the first time on March 26, 2021. Despite my best efforts, it has still been extremely difficult to get myself to do coursework and I am barely finding windows of opportunity where I can push through to do enough work for my assignments and quizzes; however, the nature of CISC 226 Game Design is primarily a group project. To have a successful game project, groups have weekly meetings and need to communicate frequently to work cohesively. I have not been able to contribute to the group and have been missing the majority of the meetings because as I mentioned earlier, it is difficult for me to interact with my peers. This led to them developing the game regardless of the level of my input and at a rate where I cannot assist at in my current state. I am essentially not a part of the group and my group seems to not require my assistance. The reason why I did not drop the course before week 8 is that I believed that I could still manage to get through the course like all my current and previous courses; however, I did not take into consideration how much more difficult a group project would be given my mental state. I only realized that CISC 226 was not working for me when my group members started complaining to my professor for my lack of participation which was after the drop deadline. This was also when my professor recommended that I go check out SWS. The mental strain that forcing myself to continue in this course would cause is not worth obtaining the credits for an elective in which I do not require. Hopefully, in the future when the pandemic passes, meeting up in person will benefit me mentally and academically when or if I experience another period of depression. For now, I hope you understand and approve my academic appeal.