Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Studies),

My name is Ruoling Gao and I am writing to you to appeal for the drop of PSYC 205 (Fall 2014), as well as to request CR standing in PSYC 271 (Fall 2014), STAT 263 (Winter 2015), PSYC 221 (Winter 2015) and COMM 251 (Winter 2015). I understand that appeals should be made within 21 days of the final course mark; however I was unaware that my circumstances qualified for an appeal at the time of my fall semester as I did not seek professional help from HCDS until halfway through the winter 2015 semester. Therefore, I humbly ask that my requests regarding the previous semester be considered as well.

The main sources of negative impact on my academic performance are attributed to significant anxiety and depression. In order to provide a relevant context and full picture of my current circumstances, I must begin my explanation from my first year to portray the way my performance was continuously affected.

In my first year of study, I adjusted very poorly to university life. By the time I was 2 months into my 1st semester, rising out of bed each day felt to be an enormously difficult task. I ate little, and believed that I had no one to confide in. As a result, I became extremely isolated, and in my isolation, my stress, anxiety and depression grew. Picking up a pen to study, a task that came so easily to me in high school, became an increasingly monumental task. At the time, I should have realized that the extent of my experiences were not normal, and should promptly have sought professional help, however I had believed them to be a typical first year rite of passage. Toward the end of first year, my stress and anxiety actually triggered a partially genetic reaction in the form of Alopecia Areata, an autoimmune disease that exclusively targeted the hair on my scalp, leaving noticeable bald patches. This event occurred right in the month before exams and my already troubled emotional state was thrown further off course. Everyday became a futile cycle of anxiety and worry over my academic status and my noticeably altered physical appearance due to the disease, and studying became even more difficult. As a result, I performed very poorly in my final exams in first year.

Going into second year, instead of providing wisdom, my prior experiences left me somewhat traumatized. Even very small things that triggered memories of my academics or scalp condition (I worried over each individual fallen hair strand for a time to the point of obsession) left me with high levels of anxiety. My depression did not improve in my second year and my anxiety actually worsened. Since my emotional situation changed very little in second year, I again performed very poorly in my fall 2014 semester courses. It was then that I finally considered seeking professional help from a counselor. There is some irony in the fact that I wish to major in psychology and yet still stubbornly held onto the belief that I could overcome my psychological problems on my own for so long. It was not until the day that I realized I could not remember the last time that I had a peaceful night¿¿s sleep free of anxiety that I finally made my first counseling appointment with HCDS. While seeing a professional certainly helped my problems, they did not improve quickly enough to recover my grades for the winter semester. My first counselling appointment occurred at the beginning of March 2015, and I did not feel in a fit state of mind to write my exams in April. My anxiety in those two months increased to peak levels due to the added stress of exam time. Every morning I would wake up with intense feelings of heavy weights on my chest coupled with difficulty breathing and a very rapid heart rate. The same situation would occur every night when I attempted to fall asleep which greatly hindered my sleep cycle. Anxiety attacks and fatigue during the day in turn depressed my ability to concentrate on studying for finals.

Moving forward, I will be making extensive use of the Learning Strategies center in order to ensure that this does not occur again. In addition, I am now seeing a personal counsellor regularly every week in order to help improve my emotional condition and plan to continue to do so throughout the summer and into the next school year. I am attending appointments through the summer in the hopes that when school begins in September, I will be able to start anew and focus on my academics with a much better system of managing my mental health.

Thank you for taking the time to read my appeal and I hope that my account of the past two years was able to provide a sufficient amount of information for which to make your decision. Thank you again.

Sincerely,

Ruoling Gao