Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Bénard:

I am submitting an appeal regarding the 21-day/one term deadline, in order to submit an appeal to have the courses PSYC 271 and PSYC 215 dropped from my GPA.

The reason I am applying for these appeals so late is due to a number of problems I have been having in my personal life. During my second year of university, I was struggling with a debilitating depression that effectively rendered me unable to perform properly in many of my courses. The depression began to have a serious effect on my academic performance around early October, and continued to worsen as time went on. I began to go through extended depressive periods that prevented me from performing properly in school, and I ended up failing PSYC 271. In second term, my depression was augmented by that failure, and I struggled with suicidal thoughts and feelings beginning in early February. My horror over these thoughts I was having, alongside my struggle to keep up with my academic work, resulted in a failure of PSYC 215. The most severe time periods of my depression coincided with the midterm and final exam seasons for these classes. My depression meant that I often felt I was not capable enough to do the work I needed to do. Other times, more often, I would descend into the thought process of: ¿¿There¿¿s no point in doing the work¿ because I was having thoughts of suicide. And all of this was often accompanied by a blankness and numb feeling that destroyed any motivation or desire to try in me.

These psychological problems I was having were augmented by the problems I was in turn having with the people in my life. My family is not supportive in situations relating to mental illness (they view it as a weakness of character) and my housemates took my change in behaviour negatively and began to isolate me from them. I went to a counsellor at Queen¿¿s twice in second semester (Winter 2016), but I felt that she didn¿¿t truly understand the scope of the problems I was having - though this was also partially due to me, because I was unable to verbally admit that I was having suicidal inclinations, so she wasn¿¿t aware of the full scope. All of these struggles in second year resulted in a downward spiral that lasted much of last summer, until I finally was able to make a turnaround. I tried to figure out how to cope with my depression, but that meant that I had to completely focus on my mental health, and I couldn¿¿t give thought to submitting an appeal because I was not in a place where I would be able to handle the process, due to fear and a struggle with talking about my psychological problem and illness.

This past year, my third, I have so far been able to handle things better. I have learned coping methods, I have been dealing with my depression, and specifically, I was also diagnosed with ADHD - which has helped me understand where some of my mental health problems come from. I was prescribed medication for my depression and ADHD, that has been helping, and I have appointments with a psychiatrist in Kingston, beginning on September 6 when school starts, to ensure that I do not relapse into the bad place that I was in second year. I am easing my course load, and taking classes that are easier for me to handle. I am taking courses to make up for the loss of credits toward my degree plan that these two classes caused, but I was made aware of this option to appeal and want to do so for these classes and have the failed grades dropped. The PSYC 271 and 215 failures happened as a result of a dark time in my life - a time that I am trying not to ever go back to. They are significantly affecting my GPA in a negative way that makes it feel like my depression has its claws in my life, and I really believe that these failures were not a reflection of my true capability.

Thank you for reading my appeal letter. I hope I have communicated my situation clearly, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely,

Sarina Grewal