Petition Letter
Hello Professor Fanning,
I am making this request for permission to drop my DEVS 221 course after the drop deadline.
First of all, I??d like to apologize once more about my lack of participation in the course and activities. The course genuinely appeals to me, and looks like it would be fun, and I enjoyed the work I did end up doing.
My old friend group decided to start working on a comic about four years ago. It was a weird dynamic shift in which one of us became the ??leader,? and the others followed and created the comic and such. I didn??t exactly want to do the comic, that was the ??leader??s? idea, but I didn??t want to be ostracized from my friend group, so I provided some translations for them as well as a lot of free art (I specify the art I was doing was free, because they had set up a Patreon for the comic. Some of my friends were getting paid. I was not).
All this is to say, a few months ago they decided I wasn??t making enough for them, so they kicked me out of my friend group. Even though I have been told by others that the situation was really wrong of them, it still took a great toll on my mental health to essentially be ostracized from my entire support circle of over 6 years. I could barely get myself out of bed or into the shower, much less focus on school. I believe I spent most of my days staring at the screen of my computer trying to will myself into doing something, to minimal results.
It??s been months since that happened, and while it is something that will probably hurt me for the forseeable future, I believe that in the future I will also be well enough to continue my coursework.I finally opened up to my Mom about what was happening and she has been able to give me support and also get me into counselling. I??m really sorry I wasn??t able to pull through this semester.
For why I didn??t ask for help and hid what was going on- I was ashamed. Both that I essentially had zero friends now, and that I couldn??t pull through on my own. I tried to persevere despite everything, which had no results, and by the time I asked for help, it was much too late to drop out. I??m on the autism spectrum and have support for administrative tasks, and I had no idea about deadlines for it. In the end, that all led to this situation, which I??m hoping can be sorted out.
Thank you,
Thomas Harriman
I am making this request for permission to drop my DEVS 221 course after the drop deadline.
First of all, I??d like to apologize once more about my lack of participation in the course and activities. The course genuinely appeals to me, and looks like it would be fun, and I enjoyed the work I did end up doing.
My old friend group decided to start working on a comic about four years ago. It was a weird dynamic shift in which one of us became the ??leader,? and the others followed and created the comic and such. I didn??t exactly want to do the comic, that was the ??leader??s? idea, but I didn??t want to be ostracized from my friend group, so I provided some translations for them as well as a lot of free art (I specify the art I was doing was free, because they had set up a Patreon for the comic. Some of my friends were getting paid. I was not).
All this is to say, a few months ago they decided I wasn??t making enough for them, so they kicked me out of my friend group. Even though I have been told by others that the situation was really wrong of them, it still took a great toll on my mental health to essentially be ostracized from my entire support circle of over 6 years. I could barely get myself out of bed or into the shower, much less focus on school. I believe I spent most of my days staring at the screen of my computer trying to will myself into doing something, to minimal results.
It??s been months since that happened, and while it is something that will probably hurt me for the forseeable future, I believe that in the future I will also be well enough to continue my coursework.I finally opened up to my Mom about what was happening and she has been able to give me support and also get me into counselling. I??m really sorry I wasn??t able to pull through this semester.
For why I didn??t ask for help and hid what was going on- I was ashamed. Both that I essentially had zero friends now, and that I couldn??t pull through on my own. I tried to persevere despite everything, which had no results, and by the time I asked for help, it was much too late to drop out. I??m on the autism spectrum and have support for administrative tasks, and I had no idea about deadlines for it. In the end, that all led to this situation, which I??m hoping can be sorted out.
Thank you,
Thomas Harriman