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Originally Posted by psychehedone
Thanks Keeprolling! That's actually a great idea. How would you approach your TA/Prof, and what kind of information would you divulge? For example, my instructors know that I'm registered with my university's disability services and sometimes require special accommodations, but not *why*.
I guess I've never really felt comfortable talking to instructors about these things because I don't know how to be tactful about it. Figuring that out would be super helpful, because there have been times when my professors have been frustrated with my flakiness, whereas really I was struggling with a bad episode of my bipolar disorder.
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Well you only need to divulge what you're comfortable with. Just sending a quick email saying that you are a student of the disability services and you have a visa thing that gives you special accommodations and you've been having a really tough time recently and was wondering if you could use it and etc. Setting up a meeting with them is always a good thing. I asked my contact person at the services to help me come up with proposed compromises and etc and she actually came to meet with me when I went to the professor. From there you can ask the TA/professor to talk to your teammates even though you'll talk to them too and work with your teammates on splitting up the work more to fit what's happening. Really though the first step would be to contact the disabilities services and ask if they wouldn't mind helping you send an email and make good ideas for new requirements for the class, they're really good at that sort of thing
Yeahhh. Talking to professors and TAs is always tough. I don't think I've ever said that I was depressed myself but I did mention a few of the symptoms in passing along with mentions of how hard I was trying to complete the material but it just wasn't happening. It's your medical record so you don't have to share unless your comfortable but I find it really nice to get a bit of slack from the professors during tough times.
Best of luck and keep us updated! Feel free to PM me if you have more questions