Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: June 9, 2023
Queen’s University, Arts and Science
Re: Petition to waive requirement to withdraw for one year Student # 20360537

Dear Dr. Stephenson, Associate Dean

I am writing this letter to ask you to waive the requirement to withdraw from school for one year. There
were many extenuating circumstances that affected my academic ability throughout the last year such
as my mental health, physical health, technological failures beyond my control, lack of accommodations
and my maturity.

Last year I was diagnosed with depression, and had started taking medication for it, however, I have
reason to believe the dose I had been taking (20mg, fluoxetine) was not very effective, as I experienced
many mood swings and emotional lows which drastically affected my ability to function productively
throughout the last school year. To add onto this, there was a specific relationship I had that, when
ended, completely ruined an extensive portion of my year. I know that it is slightly ridiculous to use this
as an excuse but considering my mental illness, this situation completely brought my world to its knees
and catapulted me into a serious depressive episode, which once again drastically hindered my ability to
function. I have since healed from that relationship and feel much more equipped to deal with such
disappointments after having learned through this one. Also, as of writing this letter I have put myself
on a higher dose (40mg) and I have already started to notice an increase in my ability to put in more
effort into my work and to not be so emotionally affected by extenuating circumstances. (See my
doctor’s letter).

Other mental illnesses that I suffer from include attention deficit problems, and anxiety. My anxiety was
diagnosed at the same time as my depression and is something that sometimes affects my actual ability
to get myself to do tasks, I.e. I get too nervous or scared to do a lot of different tasks including and most
often schoolwork. The reason I get scared stems from beliefs of inadequacy which is something I had
been believing for years and especially during high school. My anxiety is something that I have been able
to conquer and mitigate, thanks to Queen’s, by branching out of my comfort zone, meeting new people
and having new experiences, and I have reason to believe my medication has been helping with my
anxiety. A return to Queen’s would be helpful not hurtful to my feelings of anxiety. I do not believe that
my anxiety will be a significant issue going forward. As for my attention deficit issue, I have started using
a timetable and a daily calendar to better manage my time this summer and I have already noticed an
improvement.

As well as my mental illnesses, there were many temporary factors that prevented me from doing well
in school such as my computer not working, my accommodations not being in place, and physical
illnesses. During the entire first semester of school the only personal computer I had to use for work was
my Chromebook that I had been using since grade nine, so this was not ideal for computer science. My
laptop would constantly crash anytime I would try to use any software for doing work such as Replit or
Google docs and, in fact, many Queen’s-supported software for completing reading assignments such as
Perusal and Pearson made my laptop downright in-operable. Because of this issue, it made doing many
reading assignments impossible and generally doing schoolwork a lot more frustrating and harder to
complete. Many of my low marks are not from poor work, but from just not being technically able to get
work done or work that was late, and therefore given a zero, in part due to trouble with tech. At the end
of the first semester, however, I bought a new laptop and I have not had any technological issues
related to school and, going forward, I do not expect that I will.

Furthermore, after my less than satisfactory completion of the first semester, because of my diagnosed
depression and other conditions, I was able to get many academic accommodations which helped me
out later in the year. Once I got the accommodations though, I must admit I was very confused on how
they worked and how to use them and as such you can see at the beginning of the second semester
there wasn’t much of an improvement with my academics and you can see that there were a number of
accommodated tests that I missed, showing that I didn’t understand how the accommodations worked.
About halfway through the second semester though I finally figured out how they worked, and as such
you can see an improvement with my work quality and with my ability to submit work on time. I think
that if I had these accommodations in place during the first semester, I do not believe I would have
performed so academically poorly throughout the school year. Now that I do have the accommodations,
I believe that if I come back next year, with them in place, I could perform drastically better at school. In
fact, the marks that I did receive in several of my term 2 courses demonstrate that I can do the work, I
just need a little wiggle room to get all assignments in and assessed, which the accommodations
adequately provide me.

As a side note to my academic performance, I perhaps foolishly chose some rather rigorous optional
courses such as physics, calculus, and algebra. These were not required for my program and in hind sight
I probably should have chosen some courses that would ease my overall load, not increase it. If I get the
chance to return, I will plan to balance my course load and not take on unnecessary risk.
My school year was also hindered by the several, multiple-weeks-long flus that I contracted. Some
weren't that bad like the aforementioned ‘Frosh Flu’ but others had me bed-ridden for weeks at a time
and so it made completing certain assignments on time a lot harder, and in the first semester there
were a few assignments I had missed because of this. I didn’t realize how much a missed assignment
would impact my overall marks. I know that going forward I can document any serious illnesses and
communicate properly with my professors.

Finally, I would like to talk about how looking back at myself after coming to Queen’s I can say that I was
not at all emotionally or mentally ready for university. For pretty much all of high school I struggled with
major delusions of inadequacy. I basically thought that I was worthless in every situation. And so
throughout high school, especially in grade twelve, I felt like I sucked at everything and so I felt I really
didn’t have anything going for me except for school. Subsequently, in grade twelve I promised myself
that if school was the only good thing I had left, then I would try my absolute hardest to do well in it. By
all accounts I did do well in school, but it came with a drastic toll on my mental health and my social life.
When I got to Queen’s and I interacted with so many new people and was introduced to so many new
experiences, it felt like a massive realization that there was so much more to life than school (and I am
deeply grateful to Queen’s for this). Unfortunately, I let the academic part of my life become less and
less important as the school year went on, which of course affected my academic results. I regret this
and, now that I know the consequences, I would not let this happen again. As of completing the school
year I have learned how to better manage my emotions and I have learned how to include multiple
things into my life I.e., friends, work, relationships and school without them negatively affecting each
other. And I would say that I am much more mature and that I have learned a lot of valuable lessons
from this year and so going forward I think that I am now ready for university.

I hope that these reasons are enough to make you waive the requirement for me to withdraw for one
year. In many ways, my experience at Queens has helped me grow and accept myself, and given me
reasons to look to the future more positively. I would ask that you waive the requirement to withdraw and allow me to stay in an environment in which I know I can thrive.
Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Logan Brodie-Brown