Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Respected Associate Dean,

I would like to appeal to late drop Math-385 (winter 2019), as I failed it.

The past term was one of the most tumultuous periods of my life, with each day being a roller coaster ride. Knowing fully well that I wasn¿¿t keeping well mentally for the past few months, and still failing to seek help to mend my condition, was the biggest lapse of proper decision making on my part. In order to improve my condition all by myself, I decided that the best course of action would be to drown myself in work. Despite being ill-equipped to mentally handle the pressure of six courses this past term and two jobs, I decided to take on the challenge. This was clearly a wrong decision, resulting in me not only failing Math-385, but also further deteriorating my already fragile mental health condition. Also in retrospect, being a second year, I should have not taken any upper year courses, explaining my poor performance in both the upper year courses I took. It was in late February that I finally decided to seek therapy, as my condition had started going from bad to worse, with each task becoming a complete burden and me losing interest in everything, in light of the circumstances I had put myself in. Furthermore, to ease off some burden, I also tried to convert this course as a PIC back in February, but my application was rejected, only adding to the stress and anxiety. These mental ailments affected my academic performance this term severely. Battling mental health issues, having my PIC rejected and working under immense stress, I contemplated dropping the course before the final but decided against it as I didn¿¿t want to give up, and that¿¿s why I decided not to the drop the course when I had the opportunity. As it turned out, I was being extremely naive and have learned a great deal from this nightmare.

This whole experience has taught me a lot of things, and put me in a better place to not take decisions like this in the future. To begin with, I have been seeking therapy to treat my mental ailments, which has proven to be of great help. I also realized how valuable the academic support services on campus can be, after visiting them this term as I was coping with the coursework. I plan to continue seeking therapy to improve my mental health and also fully exploit the academic support services available to be able to navigate through uni life be it academics or otherwise.