Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (studies),

I am writing to appeal CLST 103 (winter, 2019). This year, especially around the winter, I went through a rough episode of mental illness. I had been struggling since October, however from December to March was when it was especially bad. My mental illness was debilitating in many ways and resulted in me missing most classes of second semester. It also makes it very difficult for me to finish assignments over a set period.

Fortunately, most of my other classes this year were courses that were essay based and had very spread out deadlines. This meant that I could get an extension on essays and sometimes the only test I would have to write were my exams. CLST 103 however, was made up only of unit tests (each worth 20) and an exam.

This made the course a lot harder than I thought it would be for me to manage because going in to write tests was a lot bigger of an issue for me than emailing in an essay. I ended up missing tests. At the time I had short term accommodations but when I would schedule a makeup test I still wouldn't be able to get myself to write it. I had been talking with my counselor who advised me to drop the course, however by that point it was already past the drop deadline and I would have had to appeal, so I wanted to give it a try. However throughout second semester my mental health only got worse and I unfortunately couldn't turn it around.

I have never had a depressive episode this bad and was not properly equipped to handle it. After continuing to see my counselor and starting new medication I am feeling better. I think it is the kind of thing that gets worse in the winter but hopefully with me medication and a good support system at LaSalle I hope that in the future if this happens again I will be able to handle it better. I want to do well in school and graduate and not let an obstacle like mental health come in the way of that again.

Thank you,

Samara Lijiam