Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Michael Pirie (NetID: 15mjp2, Student Number: 20002454) and this is my appeal document for CISC 447 (Intro to Cybersecurity) in the Fall term of 2020.

I just went into my 5th year at Queen's in the School of Computing. I have been diagnosed with moderate to severe anxiety which has affected my studies in the past at Queen's and elsewhere. I had been, over the last few months working on improving my anxiety, as the extent of it was so severe, I couldn't even share that I had anxiety with even my parents. This was due to the irrational fear it caused making me think I would be rejected as a person because of it. Once I had finally told my story to them, we tried to move forward with it to help me improve. One of the main sources of anxiety is abandonment and being alone/without friends or some sort of support. This is important to my appeal since it helps explain what happened this semester.

During this year, I made the move from a 6-person house into a new apartment with 2 others from the house that we lived in. This was because 3 of my housemates graduated last year, coupled with the fact that almost all the people I had connected with over the last 4 years also graduated. On top of that, the COVID-19 virus completely shut down any social interactions I would have made due to the lockdown requirements. What this led to, was a complete breakdown of my mental state at the beginning of the semester. I was worried about being in this new environment and having lost almost all the friends I made during my time at Queen's, I shut down completely. This led to me missing the first assignments in two of the three courses I was taking. Another source for my anxiety, is my irrational fear of failure or reprisal, so this led me to not only ignore the responsibilities of my academics but out of fear of the Profs being angry, I did not try to reach out to them to remedy the situation.

The reason I am not asking for an appeal for both of these courses is that I finally, after breaking down completely near the end of the semester, confessed to my parents what was going on. I could no longer deal with the stress and anxiety caused by my actions. With their guidance, they gave me the push to contact my profs and see if there was anything to be done. One of my profs was very understanding and let me submit the missed assignments within reason, leading to a passing grade. This meant that the course cannot be appealed according to the info online.

For CISC 447, they recommended getting into contact with the appeals office to see what could be done.

Over the last few months, I have started anxiety medication and began seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist, to try and help work through the sources of my anxiety so that this does not occur again. As required by the appeals office, I have obtained an appeal document with all the relevant information needed for an appeal from my psychiatrist.

In summary, I am hoping through this appeal that I can have a late drop for CISC 447 instead of a fail.

Michael Pirie