Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Studies),

I am appealing to drop the three courses I had taken in the winter semester of 2017: ENSC 315, ENSC 390, and STAT 263.

During that semester I had particularly bad episode my clinical depression and anxiety disorder which I was diagnosed with a few years prior. It severely impacted my health including my ability to eat and sleep which in turn made it extremely difficult to keep up with my studies. Not being able to eat or sleep well meant that I had no energy and it was a struggle to attend lectures or focus on assignments. Most of my energy went to do what little I could to get help from doctors and professors. The past few years I had successfully managed to recover and improve my mental health and my grades, since my last major depressive episode. However, despite managing to get good grades in the Fall semester I had noticed that a lot of basic things had been getting more difficult. Before the winter semester started I immediately contacted my long time psychologist in Kingston, Dr. Irwin Altrows about those difficulties as I had noticed it getting progressively worst. He worked with me to try to get my eating and sleeping back to healthy patterns but throughout the semester it was an ongoing to struggle and it felt like the situation was deteriorating. He suggested that it was possible that I needed to go back on medication that I had previously taken and subsequently weaned off of after my last episode. I met with Dr. Billing at Student Health Services, who I had seen in previous years as well, and together we decided that it was best for me to resume anti-anxiety/depression medication. She suggested that it was possible that I had weaned off the medication too early last time and that is what led to a relapse. I saw her and was prescribed the medication at the end of March and saw her again in mid-April. I found that after a month the medication was really helpful and have since been able to repair my eating and sleeping schedules as well as my overall productivity. During that time, I had also emailed and spoke with my professors about my situation and asked for support such as extensions for assignments but the underlying mental health and physical health situation put too much of a strain that I still wasn¿¿t able to complete them. I had also continued to see Dr. Altrows once a week during that whole semester.

My future plan is to continue taking my medication, which has been making a huge difference, as well as continue to see Dr. Altrows and Dr. Billing regularly throughout the school year. I have also moved out of my old apartment which was in a building that had a very disruptive environment (e.g. many disturbances among the neighbours, multiple fire alarms in the middle of the night) and into a healthier and quieter one. I foresee that those factors would make a huge difference in my overall mental wellbeing and in turn my academic success. I had spoken with an academic counsellor as well and this fall term back I will have a light course load of 4 courses to ease myself back into school.

Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Crystal Fung