Petition Letter
Hello,
I am requesting to drop GEOL 232 from my fall semester, although it is past the November deadline. There have been medical issues which have interfered with my studies which I will describe below.
This school year I lived in an apartment with my girlfriend. She suffers from and has been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. More importantly, she has suicidal thoughts which are worse some days than others. On worse days, I have to stay with her because if she was left alone she would likely kill herself. If I had a class at a time like this there was no way I could go. Her moods were unpredictable and suicidal moods struck every few days at least. This culminated in an especially bad episode where I had to bring her to the hospital. We slept in a padded observation room overnight and saw several doctors and psychiatrists. In the morning she was admitted to the Kingston General Hospital for a more prolonged stay. She was released from the hospital after about a week. Her parents took her to live back at her family home where she is receiving thorough treatment. There are many of her family members there who can keep an eye on her and can take better care of her than I could by myself.
For the past few weeks since she went home, I have been free to leave the house, go to class, and participate in labs.
The problem is that GEOL 232 has been a class where you really needed to get to the labs and get to class to understand the material. My other courses are not suffering as badly because more can be learned independently, online and through the textbook, compared to GEOL 232 where it is very difficult to go back and learn missed lessons or even to figure out what to learn without guidance.
My professor Dr. Peterson and my TA have been very helpful and understanding and offered deadline extensions for assignments. I tried my best to catch up, spending a lot of time in the labs and in my textbook trying to learn it on my own. I did not drop the course before the deadline because I thought that I would be able to catch up. Unfortunately it was much more difficult to learn independently than I anticipated and I would appreciate the opportunity to start again fresh next year and learn about mineralogy when I am in a better position to do so. I could do well in this course under regular circumstances.
There have been so many doctors, psychiatrists and counsellors in multiple cities that I am not sure what to provide for supporting documentation, but if documentation is requested my girlfriend would be willing to ask her current counsellor and figure something out from there.
Thank you,
Sam
I am requesting to drop GEOL 232 from my fall semester, although it is past the November deadline. There have been medical issues which have interfered with my studies which I will describe below.
This school year I lived in an apartment with my girlfriend. She suffers from and has been diagnosed with major depressive disorder. More importantly, she has suicidal thoughts which are worse some days than others. On worse days, I have to stay with her because if she was left alone she would likely kill herself. If I had a class at a time like this there was no way I could go. Her moods were unpredictable and suicidal moods struck every few days at least. This culminated in an especially bad episode where I had to bring her to the hospital. We slept in a padded observation room overnight and saw several doctors and psychiatrists. In the morning she was admitted to the Kingston General Hospital for a more prolonged stay. She was released from the hospital after about a week. Her parents took her to live back at her family home where she is receiving thorough treatment. There are many of her family members there who can keep an eye on her and can take better care of her than I could by myself.
For the past few weeks since she went home, I have been free to leave the house, go to class, and participate in labs.
The problem is that GEOL 232 has been a class where you really needed to get to the labs and get to class to understand the material. My other courses are not suffering as badly because more can be learned independently, online and through the textbook, compared to GEOL 232 where it is very difficult to go back and learn missed lessons or even to figure out what to learn without guidance.
My professor Dr. Peterson and my TA have been very helpful and understanding and offered deadline extensions for assignments. I tried my best to catch up, spending a lot of time in the labs and in my textbook trying to learn it on my own. I did not drop the course before the deadline because I thought that I would be able to catch up. Unfortunately it was much more difficult to learn independently than I anticipated and I would appreciate the opportunity to start again fresh next year and learn about mineralogy when I am in a better position to do so. I could do well in this course under regular circumstances.
There have been so many doctors, psychiatrists and counsellors in multiple cities that I am not sure what to provide for supporting documentation, but if documentation is requested my girlfriend would be willing to ask her current counsellor and figure something out from there.
Thank you,
Sam