Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter:
Lucca Meira Bassani
Ipatinga, Brazil
June 25, 2025

I hope this letter finds you well. I’m writing to request to drop a class after the last official date for dropping classes for my failed Fall term courses. I’m Lucca Meira Bassani, Student Number: 20485268. I had extenuating circumstances happen to me and will share some significant events that occurred during my first year at Queen’s, which have impacted my academic and personal growth.

During the first days, it was great, feeling extremely proud of myself for having achieved my dream of studying at a university outside Brazil, my home country. After that, early in September, my birthday arrived, and I started to feel extremely lonely, as I had never felt before. As the year progressed, I felt that I was out of place and did not belong there. This feeling followed me during the entire year.

This situation was worsened by the fact that not even in my room I could feel comfortable because my roommate collected trash in the room. He never threw trash out and it took me begging for him for months so he could throw some of it out. And by the end of the school year, he still didn’t make the effort to clean up after himself. Because of this situation studying in my room or even just relaxing was almost impossible, as the smell of the place was awful and often I had two options leave the room or improvise a mask. Sometimes it was uncomfortable enough that I went to Tindall field and slept by the goalpost during warmer days. And ultimately led me to ask to change rooms, but sadly they responded with “It’s not possible”.

As all this happened, the only thing that could make me feel well was playing the sport I’m passionate about, soccer, I have been playing since I was four and it always brought me joy. And during these dark times, it was the only thing that made me feel like a normal person. Around the end of September, I noticed that my grades plummeted, which made me feel desperate, In my head I was the only one that was having this type of problem, it made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be here. With this desperation I started to study countless hours to try and recover the grades, I switched day for night, and I would study a lot, but little would actually matter, it got to a point where by the end of October I wasn't even enjoying playing soccer, I was crying during games, that's when I started feeling burned out and to get matters worse I found out that I had broken my wrist and needed surgery to repair it, taking me a long time to recover. At this point I felt hopeless I had lost everything, my friends and family stayed in Brazil and Toronto, and I lost the only thing that I ever felt passionate about (soccer).


And by reading week, I could not attend classes, I found it difficult to leave my bed, and the only thing that I could think it was: “I’m a failure”. And now a broken wrist made everything more difficult since mid-November I was told to avoid moving my wrist at all costs, my mental health plummeted during this semester, but it is something that I looking forward to taking care of.
As it is right now I’m in Brazil recovering from my wrist surgery, which was done early this month, and a therapist to help me deal with my mental health. I also talked to an academic advisor and student care team to help me with my academic career going forward.


Thank you for considering my request. I deeply appreciate your understanding and hope for the opportunity to move forward on more stable footing.

Sincerely,
Lucca Meira Bassani
Student Number: 20485268