Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associated Dean,
My name is Jessie Wei and I¿¿m a third year student in the Faculty of Arts and Science. My student number is 10152525. I am appealing the Faculty¿¿s decision that I must withdraw from Queen¿¿s for a minimum of three years. I believe that my academic performance was significantly affected by an extenuating circumstance.
In my second year here at Queen¿¿s I found myself feeling severely depressed for a long time, so I sought counselling and was diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety. I have been struggling ever since. In the first semester last year I had suffered from a prolonged major depressive episode. I had suicidal thoughts and constantly felt an intense sense of fatigue. There were days where I couldn¿¿t get out of bed and the sun made me extremely anxious. For weeks I had trouble performing basic daily tasks and experienced severe insomnia. I had been meeting with Dr. Sylvester regularly during that period and he also prescribed me medication so I was hopeful. However, it took about 3 months until I saw any improvement. After I came back to Queen¿¿s after the Christmas break I still didn¿¿t have any energy, I wasn¿¿t eating again, I had insomnia a lot to a point where I started to have hallucinations. I was very confused and devastated because I didn¿¿t know why I wasn¿¿t getting any better even though I got help. Later I learned that a major depressive episode lasts about 9 months to a year to recover. I really started to make progress in the summer. The past year was a very hard year for me as I experienced a prolonged major depressive episode, which I believe, severely affected my academic performance.