Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

After having a conversation with an academic advisor last week, I have decided to submit this appeal to drop my PPEC200 (Fall 2021) course while remaining in my PHIL296 class. Unfortunately, I have been overwhelmed by the workload and have fallen behind due to mental illness. In late June of this year I suffered a mental health crisis that required hospitalization for 2 weeks. I have been receiving ongoing care both at home and in Kingston and have been slowly recovering since. Unfortunately I naively believed that I would be able to keep up with a full course load; I was wrong. At the beginning of the term when I was already finding myself struggling I dropped one of my 5 courses. More recently I dropped another 2 on the drop date of November 1st. On November 1st I decided to keep 2 of my courses because I believed that I would be able to complete both successfully. I was hesitant to leave myself with only one course and optimistic that I could complete both. This being said, after returning to Ottawa this past week and after a lot of consultation with my parents and counsellors, I decided that I am still not in a place in my recovery where I can handle more than one course at a time. My mental health affects my ability to learn and perform in academics in several ways. First, I have low motivation in everything I do. Everything feels like a chore and forcing myself to start things often takes longer than the task itself. Second, my ability to concentrate is severely impacted. I find myself unable to focus on an idea for more than a couple minutes which has made doing things like reading and attending lectures nearly impossible. Moreover, when trying to complete assignments my concentration is a big limiting factor because I struggle to generate and develop my ideas. This forces me to constantly take breaks and the work ends up taking twice as long as it should have. Third, my cognitive abilities are severely reduced. My thinking is a lot slower than it used to be but more importantly my ability to produce good quality work is just not there. I don??t know exactly how my mental health condition is affecting my cognition but I know that the quality of my work has severely declined this year and I really just feel that despite my best efforts I can??t get the grades I want. Medication side effects may be a contributing factor.

I??m struggling in both my remaining courses but I decided to drop PPEC and keep PHIL296 for a couple important reasons. I know that I can only handle one course right now because I have upcoming overlapping due dates and I??m too far behind in both courses to do the necessary catchup work to succeed in both. I chose to keep one course as opposed to dropping both because I??m worried that if I have no goals and nothing to occupy my time I might fall into a depression. I decided to keep PHIL29 as opposed to PPEC because I have done better so far in PHIL296 then I have in PPE so to me it makes more sense to keep the course that I think I have the best chance of completing with a decent grade. A second reason I decided to keep PHIL296 opposed to PPEC is that I am more caught up in my coursework for PHIL296 so I feel that I will be better prepared to complete the upcoming assignments.

Now that I??m back home I??m receiving more support from my family and more intensive medical care. I??m intending to stay here in Ottawa until I??m confident that I have fully recovered. My plan for the future is to take at least one extra year to finish my program and to take a reduced course load from the beginning of the term. I had a helpful meeting with QSAS last week where I was granted extensive permanent accommodations. I am confident that these additional supports will prepare me optimally for the next semester. I spoke to my psychiatrist late last week and she was completely supportive of me dropping PPEC200, in fact she encouraged me to do so. She was happy to provide a letter to this effect and I will submit it as soon as it is received.
I am deeply committed to succeeding at Queen??s and completing my undergraduate degree. I am grateful for your support and consideration.