Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Appeals Office,

I'm reaching out to you in hopes of joining the PSYC 423 seminar past the add/ drop date. PSYC 423 is my final course requirement needed for me to graduate on track in the Spring.
For some context, I was originally accepted to do a thesis alongside Dr. Kelley in the fall. However, due to her leave of absence, I was no longer able to do so and was unable to find a new thesis supervisor. Because this happened after PSYC students had chosen their seminars, I was unable to join seminars that I was really interested in and focused on the area of psychology I wanted to pursue post-graduate. The PSYC undergrad office was very helpful to me during this time and advised me to remain on wait-lists because there is a surprising amount of movement during the add-drop period. Because of this, I was fortunately able to make my way into two seminar courses. I had one requirement left to fill this semester, and decided to wait-list for PSYC 480 with Professor Stewart rather than select one of the two available courses at the time. I made this decision because the other two courses interfered with my work schedule which I really hoped to avoid changing since I needed the hours to pay for the remainder of my semester. Furthermore, Professor Stewart's class focused on an area that I am extremely interested in and was hoping to focus on in the future.
As I was trying to enrol for PSYC 423 on the last add drop evening, I was unable to do so because my wait list position in Professor Stewart's class took my last remaining spot for course enrolment, meaning there was no room for me to enrol in 423. I had reached out to Professor Stewart earlier that day to see if there was any way that I could be accommodated into the class due to my wait list position/ thesis situation, and I was afraid to drop the class in favour of 423 and lose my place on the waitlist. Unfortunately Professor Stewart let me know yesterday that his class was already over-enrolled.
I completely acknowledge I should have been more diligent in my course selection, and should have enrolled in a course that was available on time rather than hoped to be accommodated into one that was not. It truly came from a place of interest in the course, and more so trying to prioritize my job. This is the only class I need to graduate this semester, and I truly cannot afford to postpone my degree by a semester financially. I can promise that I will be extremely diligent in catching up on any missed work in PSYC 423, to actively contribute to the class, and to continue to prioritize the work. If there is any additional work to be done to compensate for my joining the class late I will be more than happy to do so.
I appreciate your help in getting me on track for graduation so much. Thank you kindly.

Best,
Bianca Naim