Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am asking to drop the following courses, all in the Winter Term 2023: HIST 109, GPHY 101, and CLST 150.

I am writing this petition to request the selected courses to be dropped from my academic record as my poor performance in those courses was a direct result of my ongoing mental health struggles with clinical depression and anxiety. By way of background, I was initially diagnosed in April 2021, towards the end of my grade 12 year in high school. At that time, Dr. Lauren Riggin from the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health (CAMH) officially diagnosed me with (i) Generalized Anxiety Disorder, (ii) Social Anxiety Disorder, and (iii) Major Depressive Disorder. Since that time, I have been working regularly with a social worker, Maria Carinelli, and with medical doctors (both Dr. Riggin and my family doctor, Dr. Hartley Garfield) to address my issues.

My mental health has been an ongoing struggle for me for a long time, having been managing Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder since I was in grade 4. While I have gotten prescriptions to treat my mental health issues, there have been a lot of difficulties in finding the right medication to treat them and I have had to move to different medications and dosages from the originals for both ADHD medication and anti-depressants. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a perfect solution for either my ADHD or other mental health issues, and while the medication is helpful its effectiveness can vary.

Having found the right combination of medicine and seeing improvement, I enrolled in Queens in September 2022. In the fall term, I took only 3 courses, to help me get started on the right foot and rebuild my confidence. Although moving to a new city and not knowing many people challenged my social anxiety, in particular, academically I did reasonably well in the term getting a C+ in both my half year courses, which would have been more if not for the impact of said social anxiety on my tutorial participation.

However, things took a turn for the worse when I returned to campus in January for the winter term. Unfortunately, I lost my anti-depressant medication. While I was eventually able to get a new prescription, being off the medicine resulted in a severe depressive episode that made it difficult to get out of bed much less navigate the medical and pharmaceutical system to fill the new prescription.

This negative spiral would continue as I was unable or unwilling to reach out for help as my depression and anxiety grew worse. To further complicate matters, the prescribing physician, Dr. Riggin, left CAMH in February. Until reading week I was unable to gather the energy to attend either lectures or tutorials, and I was struggling to complete assignments resulting in almost all of them being incomplete and unsubmitted. To exacerbate the stress, I had decided to increase my course load to 4 based on the confidence I had gained in the fall term. Further, the colder weather in January often kept me from taking long walks outside – something I had found quite therapeutic in the fall.

During reading week, I was able to reach out to my parents, go back on my prescription, and start to create a plan to complete what remained of the term. At this point I was still holding out hope that I would be able to salvage a passing grade out of my remaining courses and it seemed at least somewhat possible at the time. Part of the plan was to reach out to professors and teaching assistants for the courses to see what could be done to make up for the lost marks and turn the term around. However, the resulting stress of communicating with all of them, the prescription’s effects not yet fully being in effect, and the pressure and worry about my academic future resulting in me becoming overwhelmed and paralyzed with anxiety. This resulted in me shutting down mentally and essentially entering another depressive episode which lasted until late March.

After I returned home for a second time and had a second meeting with my family, we decided it would be best to try and focus as much as possible on the politics course, as it was the only one in which I still had a chance of passing, and to try and get the other courses dropped from my record. However, while there was some success in salvaging politics (POLS 110B), the efforts to drop the other courses were not as successful. I attempted to communicate and meet with the proper academic services but they were incredibly busy which, combined with my general social anxiety and difficulty with communication through email, phone, or otherwise, prevented me from making any progress until mid May.

With that given timeline for the period at which my depressive symptoms and anxiety were at their most severe, I hope that provides a better understanding of how the situation developed, how it impacted my ability to complete the courses, and the challenges I faced when trying to reach out for help and manage the resulting situation. It was the unfortunate result of a depressive episode combined with social anxiety which crippled my ability to reach out for support on my own.

While I can’t say that I have fully recovered from this whole situation, I am taking steps to help mitigate it in the future. I am currently continuing with the anti-depressant medication and considering additional treatment if the medication starts to become ineffective. I am also undergoing counselling which has helped with both my depression and anxiety. These steps have seen enough success to allow me to work a part-time job over the summer, and I feel that is a good indication of a more successful next term in the fall.

On an encouraging note, I was able to continue on with POLS 110B and achieved a grade of 83 on the final exam.

In addition, I feel that I have gained some valuable lessons through this experience. Most importantly, I know that I have a strong and supportive network, including my family, friends and social worker. Further, I have learned not to procrastinate and instead be pro-active about reaching out for help from this network (and support services at Queens) before things begin to spiral. I am also confident that I have made good living arrangements for next year. Specifically, I am renting a small house with three academically-minded room-mates – who are also close friends.

While I am under no illusion that I will continue to face mental health struggles in the future, I am hopeful for the future at Queens and do not want the results of a single awful term to lead to me being unable to continue at the university. Hence, I am applying to drop those courses so they do not prevent me from completing my education at Queens.