Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

I am Vaishnavie Sivanantham, and I am in my 3rd year of my Biochemistry degree. I am writing this to appeal for a late drop of BCHM 316.

During this semester, I have been going through a medical circumstance - specifically a mental disability - and personal family circumstances that exacerbated my already difficult remote experience with online school. I have a bipolar disorder, substance use issues and I also got a late diagnosis for ADHD in first semester. With my moods and behaviours being episodic by nature, I was mindful to structure my semester to fit what I would be able to manage, such as taking a lighter course load, utilizing study strategies for ADHD with my OT (Tess Grant) developing and maintaining coping skills with my DBT therapist (Paula Bell) and I have made efforts to stay sober all school year to optimize the effects of my medication.

Remote learning already presents its challenges especially given my diagnosed mental health conditions; however, the unstable nature of my living situation creates an additional barrier to my academic participation. This explosive environment has led me to stay in multiple households throughout the school year. In the beginning of winter semester, my brother was hospitalized and upon his return my family had to make adjustments for his mental health and addiction recovery. I endured heavy emotional strain trying to resolve parental conflict and trying to help them cope and understand my brother's condition. My brother has shown progress and it continued for weeks. After this transition, I was slowly able to catch up with my courses and I was hopeful for the semester. However, my family issues escalated, and I was in the amidst of medication changes. Unfortunately, the impact of these circumstances occurred after the drop date. The past few weeks, I have had a few bipolar episodes and I have relapsed. This resulted in me failing to meet deadlines for quizzes and assignments which is uncharacteristic of me; I have always reached out for an extension or at least submitted something even if it was late or not my best work. I do not feel that my result in this course will be an accurate reflection of my academic performance. Due to the fact that the nature of this course's content accumulative and builds off of the previous week, it was difficult to adjust and catch up. As stated, the impact of my medication changes and bipolar episodes were exacerbated after the drop date, so my only option was to appeal to late drop.

From past experience, working on a health plan resulted in a positive outcome so I am confident that I will continue to make such progress. During my first semester of this year, my health plan provided the appropriate approach to my academics which helped my performance; I managed to achieve my highest grades thus far. My future plan moving forwards involves maintaining my connections with my QSAS Advisor (Meg Hall), my OT, my Councillor (Meghan Stouffer Leuprecht), my psychiatrist (Dr. Kreindler) in Toronto and therapist (Paula Bell) in Kingston. I intend to work with them to plan a structure to best fit new school format. Thus, I believe that BCHM 316 will not reflect my academic abilities given my circumstances during this semester. I hope you take my situation into consideration when making your decision. Thank you for your time.

Kind regards,

Vaishnavie Sivanantham
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