Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean,

Hello,
My name is Kate Ram and I am a first year student enrolled in the School of Computing. I started the year enrolled in 5 courses for both Fall and Winter terms and moved into residence at Gordon-Brockington House in September. I was enjoying my first few months of university life and doing well in my courses but was finding the sheer amount of the workload to be quite challenging. With COVID restrictions limiting the amount social interaction, I would normally spend 12 hours a day on my studies. When I visited my family for a 5 day Thanksgiving weekend, I felt like I only had a few hours a day to spend with my family and the rest of the time I was consumed with course work.

I hit a breaking point on the weekend after Thanksgiving (Oct 17), where I was feeling completely exhausted and had a feeling of uncontrollable sadness and was not able to focus on my school work. My mother picked me up from residence and I returned home to Toronto where I have been since. In the following days I reached out to Student Wellness where the Triage Nurse gave me a STAC form to allow for a 2 week accommodation to give me a break to recover, inclusive of the upcoming Reading Week. I was also put in touch with a Residence Counselor (Student Wellness), Nadia Sawaya Fehr, who has been very helpful in coordinating support for me. I reached out to all my professors, who were very helpful and understanding of my situation and received some good advice on how I could work on setting better boundaries to balance my approach to studies. They also allowed me to defer my course load while resting and working to recover.

During this period, I received advice from Student Wellness that I might want to consider taking a medical leave for the entire year and starting again next year. I also had an appointment with Dr. Billings at Student Wellness who assessed that I was suffering from depression and anxiety. Since then, I have started a wellness program that includes counselling with a psychologist. With the Nov 2 Fall Deadline approaching, I made a decision on Oct 29 to drop 2 courses in both the Fall and Winter term, and continue with 3 courses in each term and try and catch up with some courses next Summer. The courses I stayed in for the Fall were CISC 101 (half year) and Math 111 (full year) and Math 121 (full year). My hope at that point in time was that I would be able to work on my mental health while keeping up with a reduced course load.

As I resumed working on my courses at the beginning of November, I received longer term accommodations from QSAS as well as referrals to learning strategist resources. My QSAS counsellor, Meg Hall, also advised that I should consider a medical leave, given my situation, but also sensed that I was determined to at least try and see if I could complete my remaining courses. Over the past 3 weeks, there have been high points where I did fully catch up on some courses and began to feel some optimism I could make it work, but there have also been many low points where I began to feel overwhelmed by the building backlog of deferred lectures and was still not able to focus on my work due to depression. Earlier this week, I came to a final decision that I would like to drop all my remaining courses and fully focus on my mental health.

My intention is to first heal myself and then return to studies at Queen¿¿s in Fall 2021 and essentially restart my First Year in Computing then. My Computing Academic Advisor, Karen Knight, has told me that a spot will be held for me in the program (I would file a Return to Studies form) and my Residence Counselor has also said I would be guaranteed a spot in residence as well. With all this in mind, I do look forward to rebooting my life at Queen¿¿s next year but I do know that I have some personal challenges to overcome first.

In speaking to an Academic Advisor, Kathryn Vilela, she has confirmed that my full year Math 111 and Math 121 courses have already been dropped and do not require an appeal (the A sections of those courses will be denoted as DR on my transcript) but that I would still need to appeal to drop CISC 101 to be dropped after the deadline, in this letter.

I can¿¿t help but feel sad over making this decision to put my studies on pause, but I know it is the right decision for me and I hope you will consider my appeal.

As further support to my appeal, I am enclosing the following:
- STAC forms from Student Wellness
- Letter of Accommodation from QSAS
- Supporting Documentation from Student Wellness
- Doctor¿¿s note from GP

Sincerely,
Katherine Ram
202015016