Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean,

Hello, my name is Keith Baronia, and I am currently in the Second Degree Program at Queen??s under the BAH LLCU Major Plan. I have written this letter as a means to appeal a Credit Standing for one of my courses in the 2020-2021 Year (PHYS 118).

During the 2020-2021 academic year, I was afflicted by a debilitating mental illness that made it difficult to go about day to day life. This condition was only exacerbated further by the issues unearthed in the aftermath of my parents?? divorce as well as the pandemic. Starting in the fall, I found myself already having severe difficulty in keeping up with many of my courses, and that only worsened along with my mental state as the year progressed. By the winter term, it had gotten to the point where I could barely take care of my own basic necessities such as eating enough food or getting adequate amounts of sleep at a regular schedule, much less keeping up with academics. I was fortunate to have friends that shared some of my courses as they helped get me caught up on course content and held many study sessions to solidify concepts. These, alongside reminders from them, made getting organized and prepared for the assessments much more manageable (though it was still tough). In other courses where I was by myself and left to my own devices, it was hard to get organized or just do anything in general. When the assessments for these courses neared, the mix of intense anxiety/fear from wanting to get caught up in addition to my mental illness proved to be extremely draining and just took an even bigger toll on my condition.

As mentioned before, it proved difficult getting anything remotely done in my day to day life, but having reminders and schedules from friends in some of my courses made it a bit easier to get through some of it. Dropping the course was not really an option for me, as I needed PHYS 118 to finish my previous degree, and I did not want to affect my OSAP. Furthermore, at that point, I thought I could push through and simply deal with it which was a poor decision in hindsight. I did start to go to Student Wellness and meet with therapists and doctors around the start of Winter Semester to try and address some of the numerous issues I was facing. In addition, I also registered with QSAS and received accommodations. However, though I tried my best to get caught up as much as I could, PHYS 118 unfortunately ended up being the course that I couldn't properly get organized in with the remaining time and circumstances that I had.

Presently, I am in a Second Degree: BAH plan in the LLCU program which I intend to complete in roughly 1-2 years. Though I am still struggling with my mental illness, I am more aware of the issues I currently face. I have regularly scheduled meetings with counsellors and therapists, and I also received medication from the doctor for my condition. I am hoping that a combination of this different degree as well as these factors will help make my academic experience a little bit smoother than it has been as of late.

Thank you,
Keith Baronia
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