Thanks for the response and I apologize for the missing detail. I should have phrased it properly. The two courses they assigned me are the courses which I already took (as substitution as I worked hard on my retired advisor’s projects), and has nothing to do with the courses that I got C’s in the first semester. They asked me to re-take the courses that were listed as taken before my PhD advisor retired. This is the reason I requested for reconsideration so that I can do my oral defense without taking these two courses.