Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello,

I am petitioning to drop my ARTF 275 course after the deadline to do so because I am suffering from an acute traumatic brain injury that is making it impossible for me to spend the required time needed for this course. This is a fully online course and I have several outstanding assignments that I cannot do because spending more than 20 minutes on technology aggravates my symptoms severely. Most of these assignments need more than an hour spent on them, especially the 8-10 page essay that is due shortly. I am having to put all my energy towards the one other course I am taking that is a requirement for graduation (ANAT 316), and that course alone is aggravating my symptoms, but I just am limiting the amount of work I spend on it and am just trying to pass it at this point. ARTF 275 makes me feel worse to attempt to work on because it is fully online. The healing of my brain injury symptoms is progressing slower than most people in my situation because I have had 6 concussions at this point. So I am still, three weeks after the initial injury (it happened on March 10), having to severely limit my screentime, life stressors, and light and sound exposures. I also almost constantly feel nauseous, have great pressure in my skull, and am experiencing a lot of brain fog and confusion making it hard to do the academic thinking and writing required for my art course as it Is mostly writing assignments. Every time I try to work on my computer for more than 20 minutes I develop a pulsating migraine that leaves me unable to do any forms of work for the next few days. I got diagnosed by a doctor, and then had extra accessibility options added to my file by Cristina Cardelus at SAS, but there are no options that make it easier to do the work and I am unsure if I will be healed enough to finish my outstanding assignments by the end of the term. I have since been working with my personal therapist and an occupational therapist Sara Lutz from Queens SWS and they have helped me adjust my lifestyle to my temporary disability, but even with this help I still do not feel like I can complete my ARTF 275 course. Even having to think hard about my situation and type it out for this letter has given me a migraine and increased my brain fog.

I would appreciate if I could drop my ARTF 275 course without academic repercussions because the healing timeline of my acute traumatic brain injury is out of my hands and my ARTF 275 course is negatively impacting my healing. Although I try my best every day to limit things that aggravate my condition, my ability to heal to a condition where I could handle this course is an unknown timeline and I wish to be able to still graduate this spring.