At my university, I had to submit a petition to be allowed to withdraw after the classes I had incompletes in turned to Fs. It was not a lot of fun sharing my own dirty laundry with that committee, but I did it. My petition was granted, and those three Fs are now all Ws and irrelevant to me (since I did get my BA and go on to graduate school).
The one thing I will say is that in your posts I read a lot of self-defeat talk. Yes you are right, you will not be able to write a cover letter, apply for a job, get those Fs turned to Ws etc ad nauseum if you don’t even try.
Having had to fake feeling like I wanted to live for a good three years before it wasn’t a total lie, I do know somewhat of the road you are traveling. Only you can make this change. None of us can do a thing except wish you well.
In the University of California system, a grade change has to be filed by the Professor. The Professor has to almost admit that they personally screwed up to get the change done. that said, the grade is solely the professor’s decision.
I do not know how that works with an “F” vs. a “W,” I admit.
Call the office of academic standing and find out about changing grades, paperwork, etc. Then try to schedule a meeting with the prof (assuming you need their sign-off). Most profs will say “no” initially, but will then be open to some change. They do not want to be known as a pushover, but very few are truly heartless (yes - there are a few).
And I know from having just read your IMHO thread on cover letters that you can too write a fairly decent cover letter, so please do take Contrary’s advice and try to minimize the defeatist self-talk. Sometimes it’s a huge and important step to just get out of your own way.
I don’t want to be down on you, because it sounds like you’re plenty down on yourself, but if you couldn’t understand the material last year, what makes you think you can understand it this year? Is it a different degree or something that you’re applying for now?
The person I found who knew most about all of the grading rules and petition processes was the Department Counselor, the one who did the required senior check to see that all graduation requirements were being met. I don’t know if every college has one, but the one I met was really on the ball.
She was more motivated to be helpful that the folks from the registrar’s office, and she was more current on the rules, and the work arounds, than the professors were.
Like **Jodi **said, find someone to help you write your cover letter. A couple years ago when I was job hunting, NO ONE was responding to the resumes I was sending out. Then I applied with a recruiter who took one look at my resume and said that was my problem. He helped me redo my resume and rewrite my cover letters, and suddenly I had 3 interviews in a week. People who work in HR or for recruiting agencies or college placement services know what companies are looking for and can help you highlight the points that will get you a call back.
And as others have said, work on the confidence. If nothing else, you’ve got to fake it till you make it.
Jodi is right. This is the most important thing to keep in mind.
So, what you’re going to do *tomorrow *is call that school’s registrar’s office and find out how to go about getting those F’s turned into W’s. It may involve what we call at my job an academic petition. And, it may be that these decisions are made a prescribed times of year, but maybe not. But it may be simpler than that. But call the registrar’s office first because they’ll know the procedure and you can even make the call anonymously.
All of this is based on the assumption that you have some credits at this school that may transfer to a new school. If this is not correct (where I work there are no transfer credits in any of our graduate programs), just forget this ever happened and start fresh, for heaven’s sake.