Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dean Stephenson,
I am appealing to drop the course BIOL 243/GPHY 247/POLS 385 that I have taken in the term winter 2021. In this letter, I will outline my academic circumstances and the reason behind my appeal for one specific course. The specific extenuating circumstance I faced this term was the death of my grandfather, in the first week of February. During this pandemic, I have been attending university remotely from Pakistan, where my family lives. I have been raised and lived in my grandparents home in Pakistan since I was born, they have both been the center of my family since I could remember. The loss of my grandfather was shocking as we had expected another 5 months with him at the least. His deterioration before his death in February was sudden and over 2 weeks, during which it was very tough to manage my university and giving time to my family and grandfather as his condition worsened. His death had a bad impact on my life and my studies, with family coming from Scotland, France, and America to mourn and carry out our religious prayers during February. During this pandemic, they all had to quarantine at our house and thus, had most of the rooms in the house too. It was very difficult to catch up on my work in this environment especially with the struggles of a 10 hour time difference and online classes. It was already tough to catch up on the large amount of work I had missed during my 2-week extenuating circumstances from university. February was one of my busiest months this entire term, with various assignments, tutorials, and a midterm I had missed soon after his death. I received time until 6th March and struggled a lot to complete my lectures and work I had missed, especially as two of my classes required zoom attendance, and missing even a few of those had set me back a lot.
Furthermore, I have struggled a lot with anxiety in the past. In my 2nd year, I had an anxiety attack before one of my exams and spoke to a professional on campus. After the death of my grandfather, my anxiety had gotten out of hand and I was constantly experiencing physical symptoms such as nausea, shaking, and insomnia that prevented me from improving during that time. Even now, my anxiety has been a constant problem for me. During March, there was a time where I was unsure if I would be able to catch up to any of my work and considered deferring the term as my mental health was suffering a lot. I know many people lose their grandparents during the year, but my dada (grandfather) shared a deep bond with me and played a big role in my ability to come and study abroad too. However, as an international student deferring this term left a lot of question marks for my future so I managed to talk to all my professors and work out a plan that helped me catch up during March. However, the one course I could not understand at all was my Politics/statistics/Biol course that I am appealing to drop. The reason that this is the only course I am appealing to drop is that I was already struggling with it before my grandfather's death and circumstances. I have always been weak with mathematics and in Pakistan; it is not required to keep Math to graduate high school, as we follow the A-Levels system. Remote learning only made it more difficult to keep up and being behind in a course that included beginners' statistics made it very difficult for me to catch up after the death of my grandfather, and my time off. In March, I caught up with all my missed work and lectures, but trying to catch up with Pols385 was taking up almost all of my time. As for the rest of my courses, I am on track for them now. I hope you will understand my circumstances.
Thank you,
Ramsha Nawaz