Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Johanne Bénard,

I am appealing to drop Economics 112 (Winter, 2016) from my transcript, as well as the Faculty¿¿s decision to require me to withdraw from Queen¿¿s for a minimum of one year.
When I came to Queen¿¿s I did not anticipate the struggle I would have readjusting to living in Canada (having spent the previous four years living in the Netherlands), as well as to university life. Living off campus in a house of upper year girls limited my social interactions, and although I tried to reconnect with old elementary classmates who are also attending Queen¿¿s, I soon developed a disinterest in all potential friendships and social outings. This disinterest soon spread to school in about my third week of attending Queen¿¿s. My isolation and sadness became overwhelming and even the thought about seeing classmates that I had once tried to become friends with began to give me anxiety, making me feel nauseous and agitated. Depression soon kicked in. Most days I was unable to leave my bed until the late afternoon, causing me to miss many classes. I began to have trouble sleeping at night and often felt tired during the day. The classes and tutorials I did attend I would have trouble concentrating in. It wasn¿¿t until November that I began to seek help after I had a particularly bad episode following the Thanksgiving break. Being away from parents has been very hard for me. I skyped them everyday, as that was often my only form of social interaction, the one thing I had to look forward too. My dad came to visit me for Thanksgiving and any happiness that brought me was stripped away when he flew back home. After this I began to have suicidal thoughts and knew that it was time to seek help. Right around this time I had a few major assignments that I missed the submission date because I had fallen into what felt like this helpless state and didn¿¿t know how to cope. I began to see the counsellor in November, but unfortunately the help she provided did not allow me to catch up on all that I had missed in time for my exams.
After exams, I was able to fly home and visit my family. This helped me immensely as I began to realize that although I was struggling, I only had to make it through four more months and then I would be home. With this in mind, I tried to make the best of the remainder of the school year and try my hardest to succeed. I signed up for the bounce back program, however never received a mentor. I thought I was doing better on my own, and unfortunately stopped seeing the counsellor. However, despite feeling happier my anxiety was still crippling at times and continued to hinder me in completing assignments on time and attending classes. In March I had to go to the doctor for a prescription renewal and soon after decided to make an appointment for an ADD consolation because I still felt I was having an immense problem concentrating. She decided that I did not have ADD but it was just depression and anxiety and that if I continued to seek help over the summer, when school started up in the fall I would find my concentration to be stronger.