Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

My name is Evan Kim and last year I started attending Queen’s University in the Fall 2023 semester. I am originally from Toronto and when I started at Queen’s I moved out for the first time in my life and went to live with my grandparents in Kingston. I struggle to remember exact details regarding my year at Queen’s due to the fact that my depression impaired my working memory and ability to concentrate (this is supported by a doctor’s note), so I am summarizing my experience to the best of my ability.

During my first semester I experienced a large amount of issues adjusting to the university schedule, to my new living situation, and making new friends. I have struggled with anxiety and depression for as long as I can remember and school has always been a significant trigger of major depressive episodes and anxiety. The fear of performing poorly in school has always haunted me in the back of my mind and I have many memories of being entirely emotionally overwhelmed when I underperformed on a test or assignment, feeling much more distressed than the grade itself merited. Despite these impairments I excelled academically in high school and I assumed that I would be able to do the same at Queen’s. However, the university format of learning was entirely unfamiliar to me. I had never been fully responsible for my own learning on my own time, and the lack of an official schedule besides the daily lectures removed that format of learning that I had grown very accustomed to. I believe that I thrived in high school because I was fully supported by a system where you are assigned time to learn and to study, and anything done outside of school hours was simply additional effort. I had failed to adequately prepare myself for university learning and had no experience with creating my own schedule and leading my learning entirely on my own. At the same time I was adjusting to a new living situation which proved to be a significant stressor in my daily life. In another fashion in which I failed to prepare myself for university I did not sufficiently prepare for being in charge of my own meal planning for the first time. As opposed to trying to learn another skill I instead opted to simply purchase fast and easy food whether that be frozen food, instant noodles, or anything of the sort. Regularly eating unhealthy foods, which I was not accustomed to, and not being able to find the time or motivation to exercise resulted in me having an extremely negative body image. This took a large toll on my mental health leading to feelings of unworthiness and self-hatred which not only interfered with my social activity (as I felt I would be judged or seen as less than for being out of shape), but was another constant source of pressure in my mind as something that I was doing wrong and needed to fix.

Another issue associated with my living situation was the health of my grandmother. My grandmother cannot walk on her own due to health concerns, but because she also suffers frequently from mental confusion she often attempts to walk around, especially at night. She has a history of falling over which has resulted in multiple hospital trips. While living with my grandmother I saw how this affected her firsthand as I had to help her walk from room to room, I was woken up numerous times during the night because she wandered into another room and needed help getting back to bed, and on one occasion I had to help her recover after she fell off of the toilet. With the addition of social workers frequently being present in the house, my grandmother’s health concerns made my living situation much more stressful in a way that I was not able to manage.

One of the most difficult things I experienced, and possibly the largest contributor to my overwhelming feelings of depression and anxiety was feeling like I was entirely alone. When I first moved to Kingston I was comforted by the fact that my best friend from high school, Trenton, would also be attending Queen’s university. The entirety of the rest of my friend group from high school were staying in Toronto and I had never sustained a relationship with any of them outside of school interactions. Therefore, I thought it important that I try and make new friends at Queen’s. I met a large number of people through the first year orientation and through various other student meetup events hosted by Queen’s and even managed to exchange contact information with many of these people. However, as I began to struggle academically and fell behind in my classes I found it harder and harder to build and maintain these potential friendships. I found the fact that I was behind in my class to be extremely embarrassing and I didn’t want to open up about my academic struggles to these strangers. I was worried that I would be judged or seen as less intelligent, or maybe I would be perceived as trying to ride off the coattails of my classmates who were ahead of me. Due to the fact that I had just met these people, our interactions heavily relied upon having shared classes, so I felt a constant pressure to lie about being caught up on work. I dreaded going to my classes as the lying was just another weight bearing down on me, and every time I said that I was caught up I was forced to face my failure and my shame of being behind all over again. Therefore, my school shortcomings led to significant social struggles which further isolated me and also worsened my feelings of failure and depression. As I mentioned earlier I had one friend from high school joining me at Queen’s, however, I struggled to remain in contact with him as he was extremely busy with school work and had made new friends in his program. This was not only distressing to me as I felt like I was losing a friend, but also because I could not understand why he could succeed where I could not. Trent was taking a larger course load than me but was not struggling whatsoever in the way that I was. He was also able to make a large group of friends whereas I felt completely alone. It made me feel like something was wrong with me, that I could not succeed where he could.

In summation, I was separated from my immediate family for the first time, I had left all but one of my friends behind, I horribly struggled to make new friends and the one friend I thought I had was not only succeeding where I was failing, but was doing it without me. That in relation with not being close to my grandparents as well as my grandmother's mental struggles, left me feeling incredibly alone and isolated. This environment put me in a situation where my anxiety and depression continued to grow and weigh down on me and with every school week that passed I became further behind in my studies and felt all the more hopeless for it. My depression was worse than it had ever been in my life and caused significant problems in my ability to function as a student, socially, and even in my daily activities. During this depressive episode my sleep schedule was horrible as I would stay up late into the night on my phone, trying to distract myself from the current state of my life. Even when I got upwards of 8 hours of sleep in a night I still struggled to get myself out of bed in the morning and often started my day around noon, already feeling guilty for starting the day late. My life was plagued with a horrible lack of motivation and coupled with tiredness from poor sleep I became heavily dependent on caffeine and energy drinks to try and push through these depressive feelings. This just ended up being another thing that I felt guilty about. I became extremely anti-social and isolated myself from friends and family, not wanting to show them that I was a failure and how harshly I’d been struggling. Not wanting to interact with people, being horribly behind in my classes, being tired all the time and having no motivation to even try to get my studies back on track resulted in me skipping all of my early morning classes, as I tried and failed to get myself to wake up and get ready at 6am. Not going to my early morning classes became not going to any of my lectures and only going to required classes (labs and tutorials), which then became not handing in graded assignments, which finally became not engaging with school work or studying in its entirety. After I had lost the energy to continue doing school work I lost the energy to take care of myself. Besides the unhealthy eating habits, caffeine dependency and self-isolation, I struggled everyday to do basic tasks like brushing my teeth and showering, often skipping them entirely. I found it hard to make meals for myself even when they were quick and easy, so I started skipping meals which only led to less energy.

In my second semester at Queen’s, the Winter 2024 semester, I fell behind in my classes after the first couple of weeks, therefore I spent almost 2 months being constantly stressed out of my mind and mentally overwhelmed by the fact that I was falling behind. During which I was always telling myself that tomorrow would be the day where I get caught up, or that this weekend I’ll get my studying back on track. I spent so much time caring so much about being behind that at a certain point I stopped being able to care and entirely sank into the feelings of hopelessness. When this happened I became almost entirely apathetic to everything around me, I found it impossible to care about anything in my life and I had entirely lost my motivation and will to engage in school work. Whenever I tried to think about my current situation and how behind I was in school, all of the feelings of guilt, depression, anxiety, fear and anger all poured into me at once. Not being able to care that I was failing was a self-defense mechanism that kept me from experiencing these horribly overwhelming emotions, but also made it impossible for me to ever attempt to get my studying back on track.

Suffice it to say, the depression that I experienced resulted in numerous forms of self-sabotaging behaviour which only made my situation worse and put me in a situation that I felt was impossible for me to escape. These are the reasons why I skipped so many classes in my second semester at Queen’s University, and why my grades were so much lower than they should have been. I was not able to drop my Biol 103 class because at that point I stopped being able to care about my academic career and could not reopen any of the feelings associated with trying to improve my situation. I ask in this petition to have Biol 103 dropped from my transcript, like I should have done in my situation, and additionally to receive credit standing for Psyc 100, Math 121, and Phil 151.

The experience that I have described in this letter was not limited to my second semester. I was struggling with the majority of these feelings (though to a lesser extent) in my first semester at Queen’s as well. I still experienced a major amount of stress and frequently engaged in procrastination but I succeeded in spite of that and achieved a 4.15 term GPA for the 2023 Fall semester. Having gone through intense amounts of stress and falling behind in my first semester, and then re-experiencing it in my second semester made it feel all the worse. However, I have proven that I can be a good student in spite of my struggles and I believe that in a better environment and with the knowledge and experience that I have now, I can continue to perform as a student and excel academically, if I am given the chance. In my year away from studies I returned home and have re-established my support system with my friends and family and have additionally been attending regular therapy appointments with a counsellor to work through my school-related stress and establish reliable coping strategies. I want nothing more than to continue my studies and prove that I am the student that I know I can be.

Thank you for your time,

All the best,

Evan Kim.