Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I would like to appeal my poor first-year marks due to an extenuating circumstance beyond my control. As of recently it has come to my attention that I have been suffering through a depression. Having just finished my summer courses near the end of summer, I only just had time to really focus on me and have time to really think about other things apart from school work. During my year at Queens I never knew what was wrong with me but I knew I was in a sort of funk. I did not have any motivation or drive to study like the peers around me and I always attributed that to not knowing what I wanted to do with my future. Before going to Queens, I honestly was not very excited and I was not mentally prepared, but I thought I would go anyways because maybe being around new students and a new environment would change how I felt. As the year progressed, however, I felt it super challenging to learn I fell into a greater depression. A big reason, I think, why I fell into a worse depression would be because I did not know what I wanted to do with my future, and therefore I was not passionate about my courses. Time would just pass, and I would not have any motivation or drive to study. At Queens I would sleep 15+ hours every day and I found it very hard to get out of bed, leaving me very little time to study. I also developed a sense of avoidance to everything as a way to cope with my feelings, which was horrible for my grades and my studying because it left me no sense of urgency. I honestly did not have any urgency to hand in assignments or study for a test coming up, which can be seen through my work and my late or missed assignments during my first year. I started realizing that I was in a depression during the last month of my summer where I had this meltdown and revelation that I did not have to go down the path I was going. My mother started to take notice during this summer that I would sleep a lot especially when I did not have school or work long hours. I started seeing my doctor after that, and after doing my bloodworms, we did not find any possible reason why I was so tired. I went to a sleep clinic where currently I am still doing further ongoing tests but they seem to think I have Idiopathic Hypersomnia. Depression is kind of a taboo subject in my family and because of my avoidance, I never really had a realize that I was mentally not healthy. After having this realization I went back to my doctor, and having done all the questionnaires, my doctor came to the conclusion that I do in fact have depression. Due to my physical symptoms such as back aches and headaches, she said that I have been probably suffering from depression for 2-3 years already. After finally going to the doctor and being diagnosed with depression, a lot of things make sense on why I feel the way I do, and also is a major factor why I did not perform well at Queens during my first year.