Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean (Studies),

I am writing to you today to appeal to drop PSYC 236 (Winter, 2018), PSYC 251 (Fall, 2017) and PSYC205 (Fall, 2017) past the drop deadline.

Throughout this past year, I have had a major struggle with managing my anxiety. Over the past year and a half, I have been dealing with a significant amount of family issues. My parents in that time had suddenly separated, and in June of last year my mother went forward to the police to report crimes that my father had allegedly committed. These offences include, but are not limited to, multiple counts of: assault, sexual assault, threatening death/bodily harm, criminal harassment and intimidation by following. Since then, both of my parents have been in and out of court. Essentially, my parents are in the middle of a criminal case and as a result I have been brought into the middle of it as well. Throughout first year, leading into my second year I have received a great deal of stress induced anxiety. Constantly, I receive called from both of my parents explaining to greater detail than I wished the details of the events being charged, as well as updated every time they either go to court, something changes or something proceeds. I have constantly dealt with the stress of hearing ¿¿If your father did not do this¿¿ or ¿¿You need to tell your mother to just drop this¿¿. I have constantly been in the middle of all of these things happening between my parents, and it inevitably has taken a major toll on my mental health. I recognize that I am not required to go into this much detail in the appeal, however I feel as if it is imperative to understanding the level of stress, and further the negative development it has had on my mental health. This is within my first year of dealing with such high levels of anxiety, and it often is subdued but then very intense all at once. I have had previous exams deferred for this reason, but I feel as if the stress put on me this year has been especially difficult. My sleeping patterns have also been extremely irregular this year due to my poor mental health, and it was not until the end of fall term that I had recognized the issue and sought counselling from the Wellness Centre. During first year I had blamed my poor marks on the adjustment to university, but this year I have come to realize that that is no longer the case.

This specifically effected my academic performance in these classes as I would stay up unable to sleep all night, and then finally sleep all day- leading me to miss classes. I had also, to my dismay, put off or ignored a large amount of the additive factors to my anxiety for as long as I could. Generally, these would then all be triggered and released when I had a larger more prominent stressful event such as a major assignment due or exam. For PSYC 236, these circumstances occurred during one of my midterms, leading me to not only miss the initial midterm but also the make-up date. The midterm was worth 30 of my final grade, and I did receive a grade of zero (0). At this point, even if I were to get perfect on the final I would still not pass the course. Similar circumstances occurred in the previous term with both PSYC 251 and PSYC 205. After I had started to go to counselling at the Wellness Centre I was able to come to terms with what I was doing that made my anxiety so difficult, as well as how to cope with it if it did get to the extent.

Should my appeal be granted I plan to retake and successful complete the courses PSYC 236, PSYC 251, and PSYC 205. I am extremely interested in the field of Psychology, and am in hopes of changing my major to such. In order to do this, I need a cumulative GPA of a 3.5 within all of my taken PSYC courses, to which I know that with the correct plan I am capable of doing. To ensure this, and maintain and promote a healthier mental state I plan to continue to attend counselling more regularly in order to explore more options to successfully continue my academic life while dealing with anxiety. I will also explore options such as tutoring and communicating with my professors about my situation earlier on in the course in order to be proactive about my circumstances.

I look forward to hearing from your soon,

Brooklyn Vincent
20004530