Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean of Studies (or to whom may this concern),

My name is Benjamin Ahn and I am appealing for a credit standing in CHEM 212 (Fall 2015) attempted during my second year of studies in the Concurrent Education and Faculty of Arts and Science.

In the past year and a half, I found everyday to be challenge. After last year, I have promised to seek professional help to help ease my anxiety and depression. To this day, I have received some medical attention, but not as much as I required. I continually suffer from clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder. These obstacles prevented and deterred my overall performance. Going into second year, I was still constantly feeling down and unenergetic with every-day tasks. My long struggle with clinical depression has lead to worse outcomes, but has seen a slight improvement from my first year course-work. I would rate my work ethics in high school to be extremely organized and prepared. As an upper-year, living off-campus, I found the next transition to be more difficult, coupled with my clinical depression. I found it hard to leave bed and frequently have the difficulty of going to lectures after mid-semester. I started to notice my downward spiral of feeling ¿¿emotionally paralyzed¿ during the mid-semester. At this point, I have decided to drop a full-year course MATH 121 to help with my appointments at student wellness centers and my family doctor in Toronto. I still constantly noticed that everyday was a chore and a struggle. Getting through lectures and tutorials were extremely difficult ¿¿ where it became a chore and not an enjoyment for the course content. I found that living (doing normal daily routines) was difficult and was ultimately discouraged to do anything, but to lie in bed morning to night.

This semester, I spent much of my time at KGH, student wellness services, and Toronto, which left extremely valuable time that I had, to waste. Repeating my past thoughts of withdrawing from my studies from Queen¿¿s, I noticed my continued impulsivity and reaction to escape this dark hole I was digging myself in. I had no idea why I continued to feel the same way I felt last year, but if there¿¿s one thing to be said; I noticed some improvement, yet a lot of emotional and psychological mobility that has contributed to my academic hardship, this year.

A lot of my term was spent conducting ¿¿self-care¿ routines to ensure that I was not in any danger of harming myself physically and emotionally. This included going to appointments in Kingston and Toronto.

Every time I would attempt to study and complete coursework, I would be worrying about after the fact and the overall anxiety would eventually consume me, leading to a poor attempt or even no attempt on my course materials. I was crying and seeking help, desperately trying to escape this black hole that I was thrown into. I really truly believe in mistakes, but I contest that I would have done better if my mind and body were in a healthier state. Unfortunately, clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorders is both a difficult obstacle to overcome and manage, especially when they are combined together ¿¿ the effects are amplified and daily routines become extremely difficult. On top of everyday routines, academic work ethics were strongly affected and deterred my overall performance. To me, this is an extremely extenuating circumstance that I had absolutely no control over. Even with medication and continued therapy, I still see a boulder to jump over every single day.

Although my other grades compared to CHEM 212 are significantly higher, my ongoing health issue still played a persistent role. The syllabi for ANAT 100, BIOL 205 both majority included online components. There were no proctored final-exam marks, so everything was done at home. However, for CHEM 211, my laboratory grades have played a huge role in maintain that grade. To be fair, I have performed very poorly on both final exams (CHEM 211 and 212).

For the future, I do not want to continue feeling like this during my studies. What I can say, is that, I sought professional help from a psychiatric physician referred from my family doctor. I will also attempt to take a lesser course load if necessary to focus more on my personal needs.