Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Jean Atkinson,

I am appealing to drop PHYS 117 (Fall/Winter, 2021-2022) due to extenuating circumstances that were caused by my mental health.

I am someone that struggles greatly with my mental health and has for years, I would say that I have it harder than others because my battle is one that never seems to end. This year being off on my own for the first time was rather difficult because I have always had some type of mother figure looking over me and helping me through the tough times. So, it was a shock to be left feeling as though I had to figure this world out alone and stay on top of my work all at the same time. I have my wonderful therapist Lorraine who has been there for me since 2020. I have had many therapists, but none compared to her, she is the most amazing person in the whole world. Going back to the reason for this appeal, I only want to appeal physics because it was definitely my hardest class. This being said, since I was not very mentally stable my grades suffered quite a bit. I??m a very smart person and I know this which is why I??m advocating for myself; I did not try nearly as hard as I could have. I??m used to getting all A??s and a few B??s, now I??m looking at my grades and the highest grade I have is a C+. The reason my grades were so terrible is because I barely put any effort into my work, I was more focused on trying not to hurt myself or doing anything I would regret. Looking back on everything that happened, I was in a very dark place, and I am not that same person anymore. I have done so much work on myself to completely change my mindset on life and turn things back around. I finally aspire for the future, and I??m truly excited. Anyways, going back to September, I had a rough time trying to fall asleep and I would sleep through my alarms in the morning. This did not end well for me as I missed a chem lab and spent the rest of the week stressing about how I was going to fail the course since you were not allowed to miss a single lab. I felt like I had no support and when I consulted the syllabus all I saw was that I was already failing university a couple weeks in to the first semester. This in turn caused many dark thoughts that were very destructive and unhealthy. I obviously felt hopeless and could barely bring myself to do work for any classes or even go and pay attention to any of my lectures. The whole situation caused a negative feedback loop in my life because all this stress caused panic in my mind leading to my inevitable complete body shut down. However, I reached out to Lorraine and explained the situation and she tried to help me calm down and relax. Although there wasn??t much she could do for me, she did help me see how extreme my thoughts were for a minor inconvenience in my life. So, I then reached out to my don for help and she gave me the information I needed to deal with the situation. This made me feel a lot better, I could finally see myself being ok again. The reality is that within that time frame of me shutting down I completely stopped trying in all my other courses. My brain was so stressed about one thing that anything else added on top of that was too much for me. My only point from this whole story is that I had many incidents like this throughout the year, but I still managed to pass all my courses but one. I know that might not seem like an accomplishment to most but to me that??s incredible. I live in a constant battle with my mind, and it makes my life just that much harder than others. So, knowing that if I can just barely pass without really doing any work, then I know can thrive next year with a new mindset on life that is more positive than my prior one. I know deep down in my heart that this past year was not a good representation of who I am as a student. I would just like to have the opportunity to major in the one course I love the most. I strongly believe that with this opportunity I can achieve my goals of thriving in the biology department.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, I hope you can understand the place that I am coming from and understand why I have written this appeal.

All the best
Anna