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Can I retake my final year due to crippling mental health?

I’m an econ student @ Sussex and my university journey has slowly been going down hill. I finished 1st year with a 66% (this was covid times and I was living at home with my family so it was fairly easy for me to stay on track with my studies until I started commuting for the next 2 years from London). Fast forward to the summer before second year and my friend passed away towards the end. That really affected me heavily during the first term and my grades were awful but I didn’t raise this with any of the help services/did not claim for EC. because of this I missed about 4 assignments which really brought my average down. I tried to pick myself back up saying that I'd perform much better in the second semester since I still had time to change it around (and I did better!) but my 2nd year overall grade is 58% since it took a hit from the first semester. I’m about to finish my 3rd year now, - after results for the first term of 3rd year came out my mental health significantly declined as I got a lower grade than expected (49, which fine, happens sometimes, 2 high 2:1/1st grades for my other modules but for my 4th module I had a technical issue during the exam and couldn’t submit it. I got a 0 for that module since it was worth 100%. My mental health was strongly associated with my grades, and before I would remind myself that I still had time to improve significantly which is what would get me through. But at this point I thought there was no hope for me achieving a 2:1 which is what I really want to end university with. My parents are very specific about me achieving a first; it means a lot to them without question and it has added to the pressure so much that I’ve snapped and sought help from my doctor for the first time ever (see I come from a family where mental health isn’t talked about/encouraged as it should be) he put me on sertraline which has only destroyed my sleep. I’m in the middle of my dissertation and I don’t think I can finish in good faith without sacrificing my grades completely. Since I have the resit from the module that I failed earlier in the year, I don’t know what to. I’ve contacted the student team and they proposed that I propose to submit my dissertation ‘late’ in the resit August period and that I should work on my upcoming exams. They did say that 30 credits would be condoned by the exam board (which is what the dissertation is worth) but that would mean that my resit module (15 credits) would remain capped at 40% and bring my average down. Is there anyway they will allow me a repeat year in this situation or would I need a much more severe circumstance. These past 5 months have really been the lowest I've ever been and I would rather drop out than receive a 2:2 and look my parents in the face. (obviously dropping out would not be acceptable since we've entered exam period). But I don't know if I can recover from this. I stay up thinking about this and I feel like I should just end it all. Please don't comment to tell me "take responsibility/or this is what you've worked towards". I do need genuine advice.

(edited 11 months ago)

Reply 1

Hopefulone1

Firstly hope you are ok. Call Samaritans 116 123 please. Talk to the university about your fears/options, they have counselling people too. Even if you have already talked to Samaritans or student health, go again. Talk to your parents, they would surely want you to be around with a 2:2 than not be around at all. I got a 2:2 and was so scared to tell my parents, but they were okay with it as they realised how upset I was in disappointing them. If you don't feel like you can talk to them, ask a sibling, uncle or aunt to tell them how you feel.