Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Early into the winter term of 2023, my girlfriend of a few years had broken up with me. This left me with a very bad start to the semester with my mental health and had lasting effects through the semester into the summer. I would not be eating very much throughout the day, I was getting out of bed way later than I usually do, and overall I felt quite alone for a while. Not soon after I developed some sort of rash/skin irritation which left me with spots covering my entire body, which made me question going to many classes because I looked much different and did not feel confident enough to go. After a week or so I went to the hospital to get it checked out and was told it is most likely an allergic reaction and it will clear up. This ended up not being the case, so I went to the walk-in clinic on Princess and then they suggested something to me to help quicken the process of getting rid of the rash. Eventually, this went away after a few weeks, leaving me very far behind in many of my classes. Midway through the semester, I had some family issues that worsened my already weakened mental health leaving me struggling to get anything done including many assignments. I continued to try and push through until nearing the end of the semester, someone spilled boiling water on my feet leaving me with second-degree burns, bubbling up, on them. Once again I had to go to the hospital to see what was going on and the nurse told me I probably would not be able to wear shoes for a week or so, once again missing more classes and falling further behind. Also One of the classes, POLS 285 Intro to Statistics, was a very big challenge for me because I never thrived in math courses previously and when I returned to class after the physical and mental illnesses I had a lot of catching up to do. A mix of each of these really affected the larger assignments that were due later in the course. I remember one assignment being a very long paper that was due when my mental health was probably at its worst. I focused the majority of my time on that class, leaving some POLS 396, International Relations. Eventually, I ended up taking the stats course again but am applying to drop the POLS 396 class due to each of the previous reasons. This year I have still felt certain lasting effects but have lowered the amount of courses I take per semester. Also, I sent a few emails to the POLS 396 professor last year so if you need those I can provide those as well. I am also able to provide images (which are gross, sorry) of the physical illnesses I experienced. During the summer I finally opened up to my housemates about how I had been feeling, and they comforted me and tried to help in any way possible, I never found professional help because I was nervous/scared about what that may entail. But, my friends have only gotten closer and more understanding leaving me still healing today, but feeling much better about my current situation.