Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I would like to drop the failed courses from 2018-fall to 2020-winter. My reason for dropping the courses is due to having gone through 2 years with untreated bipolar disorder, which had a severe negative impact on my ability to plan for, keep track of, and study for said courses.


I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in October of 2020, after numerous conversations with my psychiatrist, in which I had revealed many of the symptoms associated with bipolar disorder. The reason I had taken so long to be diagnosed was because I had believed that everyone thought like this, and that I was the only one not trying hard enough. However, I now know that my condition was not universal, but a mental illness out of my control.


My manic episodes, as I later learned were called, hindered my studies severely in the second year. A side effect of mania was the aforementioned detachment from reality. During manic episodes I would often hyperfocus on a singular activity and ignore other responsibilities. This would often lead me to missing deadlines for cumulative assignments, quizzes, and sometimes even turning a blind eye to entire courses. This impacted my grades severely, as I had difficulty keeping track of my progress in multiple courses, and ended up behind in some of them. Being behind in those courses only encouraged me to ignore them during manic episodes, where I would look for and focus on tasks that were immediate and familiar.


Another side effect was insomnia. Because of my manic episodes that disconnected me from reality, my diet was inconsistent, which led to not eating enough, which had adverse effects on my overall health, and caused me to only sleep about 3-4 hours every night. Because of this I was unable to attend classes, and when I did attend, was unable to focus on the content of the lectures, which then made the courses harder to start studying for, which encouraged me, in my manic state, to ignore them.


Though it only showed in the second-year, the symptoms were existent first-year, where I only focused on courses I was interested in, and that I needed to get into physics. I ended up abandoning two elective courses that I had enrolled in, but didn¿¿t think much of it, as they were not prerequisites to my desired program of physics.


Now that I am properly medicated, I am able to better balance my life. I find it easier to plan proactively for courses, instead of reacting last minute to deadlines. I find it harder to ignore assignments and quizzes that were previously swept under the rug, and I am able to keep a good consistent eating and sleeping schedule. Because of this, I realize that the previous failure to perform academically was indeed due to a mental illness that I did not realize I had, that was out of my control. For this reason, I would like to drop the courses I failed past the academic deadline.