Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I a writing this letter to appeal the Faculty's decision that I must withdraw from Queen's faculty Arts and Sciences for the time period of one year.

I state with full honesty that I have had several extenuating challenges and circumstances throughout not only my first, but also my second year as a student at Queen's which have made it very difficult for me to meet the academic minimum required for my program.
The first and most challenging issue that has had the greatest impact on my academic performance, would be persistent anxiety and personal mental health issues that began only a couple weeks before I packed my bags and moved into residence at Queen's. These were issues that I had never had to deal with before in my life and coping with them on my own (and a way from home) became very challenging. As a result of my anxiety I would often not be able to sleep at night, which would then cause me greater difficulty waking up in the morning for early class. Other times, I would feel too afraid to walk to class on my own (especially at night) for fear that something might happen and none of my friends would be around to help me. Sitting in class could also be problematic as sometimes anxiety would flare up and it could be very difficult to concentrate on the lesson, as I would be more concentrated on my breathing.
Also due to my anxiety, living in residence could be overwhelming and I would go home frequently on weekends to seek comfort and quiet, which caused a lot of time to be wasted where it could have been otherwise spent on work.
I was loosely prescribed medication by a physician to help combat this issue but was advised only to take it in extreme circumstances and often found myself trying to avoid taking it, especially in public or around friends in residence.
Although I had seen my family physician a couple times to discuss these issues and ask a few questions, ideally I should have been speaking with a counselor but I figured that maybe if I ignored these issues they would go away faster than if I addressed them and treated them as real health problems.
Throughout second year these same problems persisted, although became far less severe over time. However, since my grades were such at the end of first-year that choosing an Economics major was the only choice I had, I became increasingly nervous as I realized that I could not proficiently complete the second-year math and calculus required in the study of Economics. This essentially led me to either drop or fail the classes I was taking, and as a result the entire semester became disastrous. As a result I still struggled with a lot of stress-related anxiety over choosing a major that was not suitable for me.
In second semester I decided to change what I was doing and take only courses that I knew I would be able to efficiently complete and pass. My marks are beginning to see an upward slope of improvement, and my anxiety has also decreased significantly through increased comfort due to recognizing my strengths and attempting to follow through with them. My class attendance also far improved and I made every single 8:30am Geography tutorial on Monday mornings, which, considering my past record of attendance is a huge advancement.


My plan moving forward is to continue to improve my marks and surpass the academic minimum by taking courses that I know I can further excel in and that I am passionate about and interested in (geography, art history, gender studies, etc). I will also re-take courses from first year and try to improve my marks however I can. I hope to be able to move from an Economics major to an Art History major by the end of third year, and take the required amount of time to complete it. I also feel that a lighter course-load of three or four courses would be less overwhelming than trying to take as many courses as possible all at once as I did in the past.
Asides from academics, I will also begin to utilize the available Queen's counseling services in order to pro-actively discuss and combat any further mental health/anxiety issues I may have in the future.

To close this letter, I will say that although anxiety is not a physical limitation, it can be difficult and frustrating to have to adapt your life around it and try to understand why you feel afraid or nervous about things that your previously wouldn't have had a second thought about. It has affected every small aspect of my life: for example, I used to enjoy plane travel and now every time I get on a plane I need to breathe deeply and count to ten. This has truly been the hardest personal challenge I've had to face yet, and maintaining other aspects of my life to the standard that I was able to before has been very difficult and not always successful. However, living and studying at Queen's has been a truly phenomenal experience and a wonderful gateway into my adult life where I have met and befriended so many amazing people, and I would appreciate more than anything the ability to be able to continue to improve my studies and stay enrolled Queen's this upcoming academic year.

Thank you so much for your time,
Olivia Loncar-Bartolini