Petition Letter
There are several events that were beyond my control that have happened in this course specifically. The common thread is that the teaching makes this course completely unrepresentative of my academic abilities, and I am confident in asserting this because the same is true for the other students in the class. Each point I will bring up has only affected me on or after Friday the 3rd. That was the deadline to drop but at that point everything was recent, I hadn't fully collected my thoughts, I don't like making rash decisions and It hadn't fully occurred to me (as it has now) that these things severely inhibit my academic performance to the point where the correct decision is to drop the course. I don't expect to gain any favour because of the fact that this is so close to the deadline, however, as it is only my fault that I didn't drop it. My reasons are as follows: (1) I missed a quiz because the prof made a mistake on the deadline, and he did not respond when I asked what I could do about it after the fact, (2) the prof has the incorrect date for the midterm in the course content section of our onq page which restricted my study time to only 3 days, not even close to enough time. The bottom line is that there is a clear pattern of why our class is performing so poorly. The only difference between this class and the other economics classes we all take is that Ugurhan Berkok is the professor, and Ugurhan Berkok designs the course content. The same students are doing dramatically better in all their other courses. Below, I will demonstrate that these mistakes by my professor are clear examples of unusual academic events that are beyond my control because a student that behaves in a way that is completely responsible in every other course will not be able to meet academic requirements.
The most recent event was our 3rd Quiz. On the morning of, I woke up and checked all of my deadlines, and it said on our onq page that the deadline was the 10th. The next day, I found out that at 4:24PM, our professor changed the deadline to the 3rd. I have always acted this way in every course I have ever done; I check deadlines quite frequently and normally I don't miss them because of this. I then emailed our professor on Sunday to ask what I could do about this, and since my email, our class has gotten multiple emails from the prof. Therefore I must assume that he saw my email and ignored it. He may point to the fact that he mentioned the poor performance of our class in a separate email and changed the grading scheme to use the better of the midterm mark or the quizzes, but all this shows is that this is a common problem for all of the students in this class. To sum up this point, I acted in a completely responsible manner, and in a way that has been successful for me in every other course I have taken in my entire life, and due to the professor making a mistake I got a zero on an important evaluation.
This second point is linked to the first. Our professor making the wrong deadline for the midterm on the onq page is the only reason why the quiz 3 situation could have happened. In our course content page, which is where I (along with every other student I know) look for out course content (obviously), it says the midterm takes place in week 9. This makes a quiz in week 8 possible. He only emailed the class to clarify on Sunday, 3 days before the midterm. So, once again, there is a pattern. A student acting completely rationally, in a way that is successful in every single other course I have ever taken, will have only 3 days to study for the midterm because of an error by the professor.
These are both clearly unexpected academic events because normally deadlines aren't misstated by an entire week, much less a midterm exam; and it is also clearly beyond my control because the professor made the error, not me, and I checked all my deadlines and was given incorrect and misleading information that impaired my academic performance.
Overall, this is a clear-cut situation where I drop a class 10/10 times if it is before the deadline because it is completely unrepresentative of my academic abilities. Unfortunately these events happen to have occurred after the deadline. I have clearly shown that there have been two major unexpected academic events that are beyond my control that will significantly impact my GPA. I will add that this (along with other unrelated recent events) have significantly impacted my mental health, and because of that along with the fact that this course has been taught in a completely unacceptable manner, I will not be completing any further course content. I have already paid for the course, which I am not happy about, but I will accept a DR on my transcript if that is the only way to protect my GPA from this situation. I have tried to take this situation up with the professor, but since he has ignored me, I have no choice but to make an appeal to drop the course. Thank you for understanding,
Ethan Wintle
The most recent event was our 3rd Quiz. On the morning of, I woke up and checked all of my deadlines, and it said on our onq page that the deadline was the 10th. The next day, I found out that at 4:24PM, our professor changed the deadline to the 3rd. I have always acted this way in every course I have ever done; I check deadlines quite frequently and normally I don't miss them because of this. I then emailed our professor on Sunday to ask what I could do about this, and since my email, our class has gotten multiple emails from the prof. Therefore I must assume that he saw my email and ignored it. He may point to the fact that he mentioned the poor performance of our class in a separate email and changed the grading scheme to use the better of the midterm mark or the quizzes, but all this shows is that this is a common problem for all of the students in this class. To sum up this point, I acted in a completely responsible manner, and in a way that has been successful for me in every other course I have taken in my entire life, and due to the professor making a mistake I got a zero on an important evaluation.
This second point is linked to the first. Our professor making the wrong deadline for the midterm on the onq page is the only reason why the quiz 3 situation could have happened. In our course content page, which is where I (along with every other student I know) look for out course content (obviously), it says the midterm takes place in week 9. This makes a quiz in week 8 possible. He only emailed the class to clarify on Sunday, 3 days before the midterm. So, once again, there is a pattern. A student acting completely rationally, in a way that is successful in every single other course I have ever taken, will have only 3 days to study for the midterm because of an error by the professor.
These are both clearly unexpected academic events because normally deadlines aren't misstated by an entire week, much less a midterm exam; and it is also clearly beyond my control because the professor made the error, not me, and I checked all my deadlines and was given incorrect and misleading information that impaired my academic performance.
Overall, this is a clear-cut situation where I drop a class 10/10 times if it is before the deadline because it is completely unrepresentative of my academic abilities. Unfortunately these events happen to have occurred after the deadline. I have clearly shown that there have been two major unexpected academic events that are beyond my control that will significantly impact my GPA. I will add that this (along with other unrelated recent events) have significantly impacted my mental health, and because of that along with the fact that this course has been taught in a completely unacceptable manner, I will not be completing any further course content. I have already paid for the course, which I am not happy about, but I will accept a DR on my transcript if that is the only way to protect my GPA from this situation. I have tried to take this situation up with the professor, but since he has ignored me, I have no choice but to make an appeal to drop the course. Thank you for understanding,
Ethan Wintle