Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean(s) of Queen¿¿s University,

During my first two years as an undergraduate student, I have made many trips to Toronto in order to visit my mother who is ill with polio however, I still managed to work hard and study for my courses during the first year. Unfortunately, during the winter term of 2017, my visits had almost tripled because my mother was very ill at the time (visited almost every two weeks). In fact, near the end of February (Feb 28th, 2017), I had to immediately go back to Toronto on a short notice because my mother was in the hospital. My mother had trouble walking and communicating properly and thus, I stayed with her for that week until she got a bit better. In all honesty, those four days were one of the longest days of my life but eventually her walking and speech improved. On March 1st, 2017, I was supposed to write my Astronomy 102 midterm which accounted for 35 of my final grade. In my supporting document, it shows that I contacted Dr. Hanes on Sunday, March 5th, 2017 after I have returned from Toronto stating that I missed the midterm due to an emergency family issue that I had to resolve and if there was any way I could compensate for it. Dr. Hanes kindly offered me a make-up midterm the next day. I studied all night for that midterm but there was not enough time for me to gain a good mark from one study session. Coming back to Kingston on March 5th without studying at all during my stay in Toronto, I had a lot of stress during the next few days because I was falling behind and yet, I was still worrying about my mother¿¿s health. I had to write many post labs for CHEM 222, 223, and BIOL 103. In addition, I had devoted most of my study time for CHEM 222 and CHEM 223 given that they were second year courses and they required more attention because they consisted of more assignments. All of this stress and anxiety about my grades were held inside me while I continued my studies and tried to make the best of everyday. Sadly, in order to cope with my stress and anxiety, I had gained a bad habit of pulling my hair frequently from the scalp (Trichotillomania) but I was too embarrassed to speak to a doctor about it during my time at Queen¿¿s. In addition to being too embarrassed. Even to this day, I am too shy to talk about it. The hair-pulling got very severe after March 5th because I had missed a midterm for the first time and I was not prepared to write the make-up either. On March 18th, I had to return to Toronto because I haven¿¿t seen my mother in a while and I was constantly thinking about her and her health. For about a week after I came back, my father was busy with his work and so I had to take care of my mom. I did not study as much as I liked because I had to be a caregiver to my mom. However, I still had enough time to study for CHEM 222 and CHEM 223 given that my passion is chemistry and I find that it is not that difficult to study for in comparison to something memorizing-heavy like BIOL 103. After I have finished studying for CHEM 222 and CHEM 223, it was almost three days left before I returned to Kingston to write my first exam which was BIOL 103. Given the amount of lectures I had missed throughout the semester from visiting back home to see my mother, I felt hopeless about BIOL 103. There was a lot of stress about this course in particular, Dr. Chippendale¿¿s section. After writing the exam for BIOL 103, I knew I did not do well on it but I kept my head up and I knew I was going to do well for my 200 level Chemistry courses. The last exam that I had to write was for ASTR 102. I had a full week to study for it. For me personally, the Kingston environment always induced stress and anxiety to me because each time I would come back from home (even though I was sad seeing my mom sometimes), I had a lot of assignments and readings to catch up on. So I decided I would study in my hometown until the day of the exam. Although I still had to take care of my mother sometimes by cleaning up the house, doing the groceries, and taking my mother to her doctors. I still felt comfortable and at peace under the boundaries of my own hometown. After coming back to Kingston to write my last exam for ASTR 102, I started to feel the stress again. I did decently well on CHEM 222 and PHARM 100 and that was because I had a background in spectroscopy analysis from high school and PHARM 100 was an online course with no exam, extended due dates, and because becoming a pharmacist is a dream of mine so I enjoyed learning about it.

I wanted make my parents proud especially my mother but in her conditions, I was intensely distracted throughout the winter semester of 2017. Given that I have high expectations for myself, and seeing myself fall behind in school and still having to take care of my mother left me a huge burden to carry. Without a doubt, the winter semester of 2017 affected my mental health severely. After speaking to my family doctor over the summer of 2017, he told me it would be best if I finished the remainder of my undergraduate career in Toronto in order to be a caregiver to my mother and do well in school simultaneously. Given that my GPA was not that sufficient enough to apply as a transfer student (1.74), I applied on a letter of permission to York University (closer to home) to see if the university was a fit for me. Presently, I am doing very well with my courses at York and wish to continue here. The student services at Queen¿¿s university kindly told me about the option of requesting for a credit standing (CR) in order to boost my GPA. This would allow me to hopefully transfer to York as a full time student by December 6th (their deadline for winter term applications) and be a full-time caregiver to my mother.

- Yashar Ebrahimi-Iranpour (10182496)