babababananannana

Hello Professor,

I rarely find myself in such a situation, but I feel I must send you an e-mail to try and work something out. I would like to apologize in advance fo the lengthy e-mail.

I have been struggling tremendously to understand the materials, even using the study method to the best of my ability. Over time, this has snowballed into the current state of affairs for me. As I'm sure you've noticed, I've fallen significantly behind in submissions for homework assignments. This has been an ongoing issue since the introduction of integrals into the course, and there are several reasons.

A typical study session for the course involves me spending several hours per hour of lecture. For example, taking good, detailed notes, it took me roughly three hours to simply cover the first lecture on Taylor polynomials. This does not include the note rewrite, nor the 'term review' (theorems, concepts, etc). This relationship between time and lecture has remained consistent for the last several modules. Even considering all this, I may not fully understand the material. At this point, I usually use external sources, which provide simple examples. However, they rarely have the same logic or approach as this Calculus course. Especially when completing assignments (which I have not been able to do for a long while), this becomes apparent, and I have to spend further time simply translating the material into terms I'm familiar with.
As such, it is very difficult for me to complete a module within two days - I invest anywhere from ten to twelve hours per module (i.e every two days) to understand the material and successfully meet course requirements. Considering this, I have fallen significantly behind.

A logical point to bring up would be the break: why was I unable to meet these time requirements over break? Over the break, I struggled tremendously even to take those initial notes. When I did manage to begin study, I was often unable to continue - the workload itself stood as too imposing. I tried and tried, but I struggled tremendously even to cover basic concepts.
This was not due to having to do work over break on a conceptual level; during break, I caught up on my other classes. It was simply the large amount of work, and lack of initial understanding, that exponentially made the issue for Calculus worse. I was unable to dedicate the time, even when I tried. For the last few modules, I simply found myself unable to study the material in an appropriate manner.

Please do not misunderstand, I am not stating this as an excuse - I am sharing the difficulties I face whenever I attempt to undergo a study session for the course. The material itself, once I understand it, I find fascinating and incredibly simple (in a good way), and find it a joy to study. However, when I see an inane workload ahead for this course, I find myself under incredible stress and find it very difficult to study.

As the test approaches, all of these issues have compounded. It has come to the point that even spending three hours on a lecture, I do not understand the material sufficiently well. I am repeatedly finding myself panicking and stressing - I need to cover six modules over a course of three or four days, days where I have other classes' lectures and assignments also due. It has become increasingly difficult to study the material.

In all likelihood, if the test is to be done on Friday (I've forwarded the e-mail from the testing center to you), I will not receive a good grade. If the grade I receive is not a good grade, I do not see myself succeeding in the course without tremendous struggle. If that's the case, the issues will become exponentially worse.

At this point, I'm essentially in a state of despair, and at a loss of what to do. All of my free time is to be spent on studying for the test, I am using all the resources available to me - yet I fear it will not be enough.

I've reached out to several people, and a few have suggested asking for an extension to Monday.