Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Appeal Letter: Hello Board of Studies,

I am writing to you today to appeal the Associate Dean of Arts & Science decision to uphold my withdrawal of one year. Ever since talking to an academic advisor approximately 3 weeks ago, as well as going to the zoom live sessions, I obtained quite some insight of where to go from here, and it starts by pleading my case on why I should stay at Queens University, if I want to continue at this school, I have to prove to the Board of Studies as well as myself that I can do this. This is my second year failing my courses, and I want to start off by saying that I am doing a lot better with my mental health since this past school year ended. I've realized a lot of things about myself and I have been trying to get my life in order. I can??t say when my mental health started to decline, maybe it started with all the small pressures my family put on me throughout my life, that eventually turned greater over the years, but all I can say is that I never used to do this horribly in school, I use to enjoy my time during classes, and succeeded in them too. My first year at Queens really messed me up because of all the online classes and being at home, it was all honestly depressing and was ecstatic to hear about the approval of my appeal. I thought this would be a chance to redeem myself from past mistakes, yet I still managed to repeat the same mistakes I did in the previous year. During the past year I started out strong, attending all my classes, finished assignments, etc., but once we started online again for a period of time during winter, my downfall hit all at once again, and continued even when we went back to in person. When it was time to receive our marks, I expected the worst and I was devastated that I was right once again. I just didn??t know how to deal with this and felt like I couldn??t do anything. Everyone around me was succeeding and I would always ask myself, why can??t I? Why can??t I just put in the work? But it was like I physically couldn??t do anything about it let alone mentally, and I know that is a problem I have to fully fix but I never had the courage to talk about my problems. Growing up in a household where my family would set high expectations and berate me for doing anything wrong in my life may have been part of why I never thought I could ask someone for help. I do have a sister which would be a great outlet to confess whatever problems we currently face, and although I do have a relationship with her, I simply cannot communicate with her as she has Autism and cannot form proper sentences. Due to this, I was never able to talk about the immense pressure my parents put on me as well as myself to succeed, since I would be their only daughter to have a real chance at a good education. I was never comfortable talking about my problems, and it really took a toll on me. But all the consequences of my actions have caught up with me and I find myself desperately wanting to talk to someone about all my issues, not just from these past two years but everything that has led to this. Regarding the Deans points in my previous appeal, I do agree with some of the arguments made, that I had no improvements from last year and that my documentation confirmed that the circumstances were in August 2021 which was before drop deadlines during the academic year. I know now that I should have dropped courses before the deadline of having it negatively impact my GPA, which I did with two of the courses I enrolled in for the second semester of the year, but I also thought like a disappointment that I had already dropped a course from the previous semester, and I was left with 2 courses. It all made me think that I wasn??t strong enough mentally/physically to take on any more than that especially with my roommates having somewhat full course loads. I guess you could say I just wanted to be like everyone else. Being able to come back again would mean the absolute world to me, I love the environment and community here and I want to be able to prove to myself that I can complete multiple courses. I know I still have issues that I have to work on but I really think I need this in order to have hope within myself and push past these two years of failure. I also believe that I would have been less anxious about everything if I had accommodations for my classes and it would have benefited me a lot, which I attempted to submit sometime during the year but an academic advisor later told me that it wasn??t submitted correctly. If given this last opportunity, I will prove to everyone that I deserve to stay this year and that despite all my mistakes I can truly pick myself back up again.