system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is there a way to fix this stupid mistake I made?

EDIT: Resolved, details at end.  Thanks for everyone's comments!

I'm a second-year PhD student in Canada studying mathematics.  

Last August in a fit of planning ahead, I signed up for two winter courses (the term that just ended).  I managed to entirely forget about one of them (the stupid mistake).  In my defense, I signed up for a two-part course, and when I dropped the first half, I forgot that I'd signed up for the second half, and didn't drop it as well.

I'm not going to claim this wasn't my fault, because it absolutely was.  However - a sub-question, if you will - does this seem a) plausible and b) reasonable that a whole term could pass without me going to class, submitting assignments or writing the midterm, and in addition that I never heard a peep from anyone about the course.... and the prof wouldn't question that, and would just submit an F as my mark at the end of it?  Especially with the current climate, they must have moved the course online.  I'm baffled.

Anyway, back to the question.  My department's administrator submitted a request to let me retroactively drop the course.  The graduate department denied it.  Fine, I made a mistake and I will take the consequence of my GPA dropping from 11 to 6.67.  But now it seems like the graduate department is going over my file with a fine-toothed comb and looking for things to complain about.  They're now claiming that I need to pay back scholarships from the Winter 2018 term (my first term in the program)  because I "wasn't a student" that term.  Can they really go back retroactively, 16 months later, and demand that?  How is that related to what happened this recent term?

I've contacted the school's Ombuds Services and I should hear from them within a couple of days.  In the meantime I'm answering emails that I'm getting from the dept admin to the best of my ability, but keeping them short.  Any advice on precedents, what's reasonable, and what I can do to fix this situation are appreciated.  I'm happy to clarify anything: it's my first post and I wasn't sure how much detail to include.

EDIT: After four days of stress and emails, I just got one from my department chair saying "A mistake was made..." and telling me it's all resolved.  I'm left scratching my head but I know better than to poke that sleeping bear.
gpt
Under the circumstances, and assuming that you reported everything accurately, it seems unreasonable for them to deny your request to retroactively drop the course.  Regardless, it seems perfectly reasonable for them to request that you repay scholarship funds for a term in which you were not a student, but you say that was your first term in the program.  Something isn't right there and you need to figure out where the confusion lies.  Perhaps you were supposed to be enrolled in a certain minimum number of credits.