Manage Appeals
Petition Type: New
ID: 8122
Submitted: September 2, 2021 at 7:47:16 AM
First Name: Logan
Last Name: Tremblay
Student Number: 20239796
Email: 20ljt@queensu.ca
Degree Program: BSH
Plan: Undeclared
Level of Study: 1
Petition Categories
Petition Categories: Waive the 21-day or one term deadline
Petition Letter
Petition Letter: To whom in may concern,
My name is Logan Tremblay and I am writing you today, with the goal to appeal my academic hold and give reason behind my lacking grades that brought me here. Though it is obvious that in the last year many people have struggled I?d like to tell my story to ensure that I can display the reasons behind my actions.
To begin, the last year has been for me personally the most difficult years of my life. With Covid in full swing and a lack of understanding of what was truly going on around me, stress was at an all-time high. For me this began all the way back in august of 2020. At the time I had been accepted and enrolled in both the arts and science and con-ed programs and had already begun to worry about the next year coming. The prospect of having to move, at that point in January, in a single parent home was an extremely scary, especially because my father is on Canadian government pension and a lot of the money that would be going towards school was going to have to come from me. Due to my need to provide money towards my education and attempt to earn as much as possible and I took advantage of my summer before school, working between 55 and 65 hours a week. As you may imagine this ate up a lot of my time to look into what was needed of me before last fall semester, and by September, I had not prepared as well as needed and already seemed behind. Trying to view the emails that were already building up for me only created more stress and a growing sense of dread of not preparing earlier which already had me worried that this school year wasn??t something I would be able to do.
All this continued, though at the beginning of the term I attempted to try to stay afloat in some of my classes, the buildup and the online nature, that even in the high school I heavy struggled with, combined with my lack of understanding of where to go for help and how to navigate, lead to me throwing myself back into work and a step back from my classes. I was giving an opportunity to work once again during the school year and because it offered a raise and I believe that if I wanted to be able to continue my studies at Queens, especially in person I would need to take my chance and work again. Though at the time it seemed like an alright idea it only led to further burying myself in a pit of anxiety and dread for how far behind I was.
As time went on, I was so far behind that I strongly considered the idea that I should for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year defer and pick up my studies in September. This led to a conversation with my father where we spoke on the idea and if anything, that made likely the correct decision more difficult. He mentioned to me how if you leave school, it becomes a lot more difficult to go back and I began to become more nervous than I was before as I could tell he was strongly against the idea of me taking the year. With me being the first person in both, the immediate family on my late mother's side and fathers' side to go to university and that means too much to him. With that, things only got worse for my mental health as I now had to make the life changing decision, while surrounded by lockdowns and the majority of my normal coping mechanisms being taken away. I couldn't see friends due to restrictions. Gyms closed and my heath dipped and over the course of the end of 2020 I gained 35 pounds and still I didn??t want to disappoint him, so I felt I couldn??t talk anymore about this with my father. I tried to push on and at least start to make a choice and I contacts Queens staff about holding my offer. I got part way through the process and began to feel I was doing the wrong thing but had no idea what another choice was. All of my year's classes were full year so I didn??t have the option to just restart come winter and had no idea what to do or who to talk to.
At this point, with everything built to its highest, I didn??t know where to go from here. My grades dropped I had no one at home to speak to because, to me, anyone I said something to would be mad or disappointed in me. I started to feel more and more depressed and with no outlets now my mental health started to faded. At this point, I found life more difficult than any time before. I was struggling to wake up before noon and my body would not let me get out of bed. I felt so emotionally repressed and though therapy was something I thought of, the doesn??t really fit into the income of our house hold. I felt miserable and was even leading to my behavior change causing the breakup of my 2-year relationship. This continued until April and although the school year was over, I still had a weight on me. Not wanting to even look at my email for fear or repercussions and to have to see all my mistakes again.
This led to summer of 2021, I had intentions of going back to school but a fear to see what would happen if I looked at my Queens email. I pushed of this until much after I should have in fear of seeing something I couldn??t come back from. However, in speaking to a friend, in august, I was told we were back to enrollment time. And although I finally went on the student center and began looking at courses I didn??t enroll because I saw that open enrolment ran until august 31st.
Still not wanting to acknowledge my mistakes I pushed aside my Queen's stuff and threw myself into work again only to arrive in late august and see that my enrollment was limited to summer of 2021. I eventually set up with registrar, who told me that my account had been placed on a 1-year academic hold. Though I had seen the hold on student center before I believed that this was my year off, I had previously requested on hold, as in not gone through and didn??t think much of this notice until it was too late.
So that brings us just before the school year and I'm writing you to please reconsider and allow me to attend classes this year and if possible, at the soonest to your ability. I have with no doubt I??ve made some very large mistakes. But I believe truly that my unforeseen circumstances and the impact of Covid can explain my mistakes. I only hope that I can show to you that my mistakes are not a representation of who I am but, instead something that I can grow from and come back from if given the chance.
My name is Logan Tremblay and I am writing you today, with the goal to appeal my academic hold and give reason behind my lacking grades that brought me here. Though it is obvious that in the last year many people have struggled I?d like to tell my story to ensure that I can display the reasons behind my actions.
To begin, the last year has been for me personally the most difficult years of my life. With Covid in full swing and a lack of understanding of what was truly going on around me, stress was at an all-time high. For me this began all the way back in august of 2020. At the time I had been accepted and enrolled in both the arts and science and con-ed programs and had already begun to worry about the next year coming. The prospect of having to move, at that point in January, in a single parent home was an extremely scary, especially because my father is on Canadian government pension and a lot of the money that would be going towards school was going to have to come from me. Due to my need to provide money towards my education and attempt to earn as much as possible and I took advantage of my summer before school, working between 55 and 65 hours a week. As you may imagine this ate up a lot of my time to look into what was needed of me before last fall semester, and by September, I had not prepared as well as needed and already seemed behind. Trying to view the emails that were already building up for me only created more stress and a growing sense of dread of not preparing earlier which already had me worried that this school year wasn??t something I would be able to do.
All this continued, though at the beginning of the term I attempted to try to stay afloat in some of my classes, the buildup and the online nature, that even in the high school I heavy struggled with, combined with my lack of understanding of where to go for help and how to navigate, lead to me throwing myself back into work and a step back from my classes. I was giving an opportunity to work once again during the school year and because it offered a raise and I believe that if I wanted to be able to continue my studies at Queens, especially in person I would need to take my chance and work again. Though at the time it seemed like an alright idea it only led to further burying myself in a pit of anxiety and dread for how far behind I was.
As time went on, I was so far behind that I strongly considered the idea that I should for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year defer and pick up my studies in September. This led to a conversation with my father where we spoke on the idea and if anything, that made likely the correct decision more difficult. He mentioned to me how if you leave school, it becomes a lot more difficult to go back and I began to become more nervous than I was before as I could tell he was strongly against the idea of me taking the year. With me being the first person in both, the immediate family on my late mother's side and fathers' side to go to university and that means too much to him. With that, things only got worse for my mental health as I now had to make the life changing decision, while surrounded by lockdowns and the majority of my normal coping mechanisms being taken away. I couldn't see friends due to restrictions. Gyms closed and my heath dipped and over the course of the end of 2020 I gained 35 pounds and still I didn??t want to disappoint him, so I felt I couldn??t talk anymore about this with my father. I tried to push on and at least start to make a choice and I contacts Queens staff about holding my offer. I got part way through the process and began to feel I was doing the wrong thing but had no idea what another choice was. All of my year's classes were full year so I didn??t have the option to just restart come winter and had no idea what to do or who to talk to.
At this point, with everything built to its highest, I didn??t know where to go from here. My grades dropped I had no one at home to speak to because, to me, anyone I said something to would be mad or disappointed in me. I started to feel more and more depressed and with no outlets now my mental health started to faded. At this point, I found life more difficult than any time before. I was struggling to wake up before noon and my body would not let me get out of bed. I felt so emotionally repressed and though therapy was something I thought of, the doesn??t really fit into the income of our house hold. I felt miserable and was even leading to my behavior change causing the breakup of my 2-year relationship. This continued until April and although the school year was over, I still had a weight on me. Not wanting to even look at my email for fear or repercussions and to have to see all my mistakes again.
This led to summer of 2021, I had intentions of going back to school but a fear to see what would happen if I looked at my Queens email. I pushed of this until much after I should have in fear of seeing something I couldn??t come back from. However, in speaking to a friend, in august, I was told we were back to enrollment time. And although I finally went on the student center and began looking at courses I didn??t enroll because I saw that open enrolment ran until august 31st.
Still not wanting to acknowledge my mistakes I pushed aside my Queen's stuff and threw myself into work again only to arrive in late august and see that my enrollment was limited to summer of 2021. I eventually set up with registrar, who told me that my account had been placed on a 1-year academic hold. Though I had seen the hold on student center before I believed that this was my year off, I had previously requested on hold, as in not gone through and didn??t think much of this notice until it was too late.
So that brings us just before the school year and I'm writing you to please reconsider and allow me to attend classes this year and if possible, at the soonest to your ability. I have with no doubt I??ve made some very large mistakes. But I believe truly that my unforeseen circumstances and the impact of Covid can explain my mistakes. I only hope that I can show to you that my mistakes are not a representation of who I am but, instead something that I can grow from and come back from if given the chance.
Documentation
Professional Letter Detail: NO DOC
Documentation Detail: NO DOC
Decision Letters
Amendment to Appeal 8122
Relevant Petition: 8122
New Information: The following is the letter requested from my father to confirm circumstances, I'm submitting it in this box as he sent it over by email so its no a full document.
At the request of further information towards the difficulty my son faced, I will try to do the best I can to outline the changes I saw and the adversity he faced. To begin, my son has always been an extroverted, energetic and outgoing person. Since he was young, any chance to be social whether it be time out with friends or time spent with people during sports, he always found a way to be with people. However over this year things changed pretty drastically especially as the school started. Without the ability to go out, thanks to Covid, he spent most of his time in his room, rarely coming down, mainly just for meals. Though it's true, many teenagers are prone to do that, we??ve always had a good relationship where we get the chance to spend time together and at a minimum he's normally out doing something or at least some kind of physical activity to keep himself occupied. But in this time frame he just seemed unenergetic and like he was in a continuous state of grogginess. It really looked like the effects of the lockdown and the world around him were taking some kind of toll. This continued at a down slope and I got worried as this went on but wanted to respect his choices and decisions and not bring it up to him. I've always tried to raise him to be independent because my mother was overbearing when I was around his age and I never wanted to push him away like what happened to me. At the time too, though I didn't want to ask him, I felt the passing of my cousin, Garnet Wilkins who Logan was extremely close with affected him too. Death is always a touchy subject and if he doesn't want to speak on it, I feel it best to move on at this time. Clearly, since then I can see I made a mistake but at the time I didn't fully know what to do. Raising him as a single parent has never been easy and although I feel that most of the time we can figure out a solution to any problem we have, sometimes it's hard to truly know what to do. As his behavior declined more, I had begun to worry, as depression is something that runs in our family with my mother having it later in life especially as her Alzheimer's progressed and me having suffered from it on and off since my wife's passing in 2005. With the pandemic being something no one had answers for, myself included, it's hard to make a call of what to do. At this time basically his only opportunity to leave the house was work which he said he decided that he was gonna work a little more so he can save to get further ahead if classes resume in person sooner than expected and he needed the money. I hoped for the best, but wanted to let him come to me when he felt he needed help.
This finally happened a couple months into the school year and spoke to the idea that he wanted to defer until next year. He seemed overwhelmed, though I did say ??you have to make a final choice?, I would have strongly preferred him to continue with his year. At the time I didn't know how badly things were going for him, I know how hard it can be to go back to school if you've taken time away. Though I went to college at St. Lawrence, from health concerns I had to take a year off, so speaking from experience it's truly a challenge to pull yourself to go back especially if you're working and making good money. For me it added to my stance as when I was his age I had the marks to go to university and do something more than I ended up doing with my career, but my father was a mechanic with his own garage and it was the easy way out for me, and that's not what I wanted Logan to do, I wanted him to try and push and make sure he got his further education. We had a long conversation as I told him what I thought and my hopes and though I could see he was troubled in general, not to mention by the decision he had to make, I felt he needed some time. And even though I didn't think about it hard enough at the time, everything I laid out was an extremely large amount of pressure on him. Combined with him, as mentioned, being the first member of both my late wife and my family to go to university, It was no doubt a tough situation. He didn't speak to me as directly about it from there, but his behavior remained more of the same and though he did express to me that things aren't going the best and the online experience was hard to deal with, he continued to keep to himself and worry me on some level. It was obvious at this point that he had trouble talking about the subject.
As the school year finished and Covid restriction lightened he seemed to be doing much better. He threw himself back into work and the time outside very clearly helped him but he still seemed to be unsure of what was to happen going forward. This culminated in him talking with me recently about his appeal and all he went through and the mental health problems he had much like I expected but had hoped were not the case. As you may imagine this whole situation was a lot to take in but I want my son to do what he feels is best and if he still wants to try and continue with his education I want to help in anyway possible and demonstrate to you what he said is true and the problems he had and the mistakes he made were not normal from him. Anything you need from this point please ask and I can answer any more question you'd like, just anything that can help the situation don't hesitate to ask.
Thanks.
Leonard P. Tremblay
At the request of further information towards the difficulty my son faced, I will try to do the best I can to outline the changes I saw and the adversity he faced. To begin, my son has always been an extroverted, energetic and outgoing person. Since he was young, any chance to be social whether it be time out with friends or time spent with people during sports, he always found a way to be with people. However over this year things changed pretty drastically especially as the school started. Without the ability to go out, thanks to Covid, he spent most of his time in his room, rarely coming down, mainly just for meals. Though it's true, many teenagers are prone to do that, we??ve always had a good relationship where we get the chance to spend time together and at a minimum he's normally out doing something or at least some kind of physical activity to keep himself occupied. But in this time frame he just seemed unenergetic and like he was in a continuous state of grogginess. It really looked like the effects of the lockdown and the world around him were taking some kind of toll. This continued at a down slope and I got worried as this went on but wanted to respect his choices and decisions and not bring it up to him. I've always tried to raise him to be independent because my mother was overbearing when I was around his age and I never wanted to push him away like what happened to me. At the time too, though I didn't want to ask him, I felt the passing of my cousin, Garnet Wilkins who Logan was extremely close with affected him too. Death is always a touchy subject and if he doesn't want to speak on it, I feel it best to move on at this time. Clearly, since then I can see I made a mistake but at the time I didn't fully know what to do. Raising him as a single parent has never been easy and although I feel that most of the time we can figure out a solution to any problem we have, sometimes it's hard to truly know what to do. As his behavior declined more, I had begun to worry, as depression is something that runs in our family with my mother having it later in life especially as her Alzheimer's progressed and me having suffered from it on and off since my wife's passing in 2005. With the pandemic being something no one had answers for, myself included, it's hard to make a call of what to do. At this time basically his only opportunity to leave the house was work which he said he decided that he was gonna work a little more so he can save to get further ahead if classes resume in person sooner than expected and he needed the money. I hoped for the best, but wanted to let him come to me when he felt he needed help.
This finally happened a couple months into the school year and spoke to the idea that he wanted to defer until next year. He seemed overwhelmed, though I did say ??you have to make a final choice?, I would have strongly preferred him to continue with his year. At the time I didn't know how badly things were going for him, I know how hard it can be to go back to school if you've taken time away. Though I went to college at St. Lawrence, from health concerns I had to take a year off, so speaking from experience it's truly a challenge to pull yourself to go back especially if you're working and making good money. For me it added to my stance as when I was his age I had the marks to go to university and do something more than I ended up doing with my career, but my father was a mechanic with his own garage and it was the easy way out for me, and that's not what I wanted Logan to do, I wanted him to try and push and make sure he got his further education. We had a long conversation as I told him what I thought and my hopes and though I could see he was troubled in general, not to mention by the decision he had to make, I felt he needed some time. And even though I didn't think about it hard enough at the time, everything I laid out was an extremely large amount of pressure on him. Combined with him, as mentioned, being the first member of both my late wife and my family to go to university, It was no doubt a tough situation. He didn't speak to me as directly about it from there, but his behavior remained more of the same and though he did express to me that things aren't going the best and the online experience was hard to deal with, he continued to keep to himself and worry me on some level. It was obvious at this point that he had trouble talking about the subject.
As the school year finished and Covid restriction lightened he seemed to be doing much better. He threw himself back into work and the time outside very clearly helped him but he still seemed to be unsure of what was to happen going forward. This culminated in him talking with me recently about his appeal and all he went through and the mental health problems he had much like I expected but had hoped were not the case. As you may imagine this whole situation was a lot to take in but I want my son to do what he feels is best and if he still wants to try and continue with his education I want to help in anyway possible and demonstrate to you what he said is true and the problems he had and the mistakes he made were not normal from him. Anything you need from this point please ask and I can answer any more question you'd like, just anything that can help the situation don't hesitate to ask.
Thanks.
Leonard P. Tremblay
Student Number: 20239796
Documentation
Professional Letter Detail: NO DOC