Petition Letter
I am asking to drop ARTH 319: Art in the Age of the Internet (Winter 2024) and HIST 241: Issues in History (Fall 2024), as well as to receive credit standing in ARTH 391: Art Forgeries (Winter 2024). Beginning about halfway through the winter semester of 2024, the health conditions of some of my family members began to worsen. I found that this was having a significant impact on my mental health, to the point where it was taking all I could to stay present in the classes I was enjoying. The majority of my family and friends live in Toronto and Mississauga so I found it hard to reach out to them about my struggles without worrying about burdening them. At this time, I also accepted a new position at a job here in Kingston that I felt confident I could handle under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, another member of the team I joined was also new and struggled significantly in their role. Due to this, I took on a majority of their work in order to keep our department running which meant that for the duration of the season, I was either filling in for them during my shifts or facilitating and training new staff to do their position after they left the company. All of this was in addition to keeping up my own tasks at work and helping manage a department of around 50 employees. During the winter semester of 2024, I decided to prioritize my 400-level courses where I was responsible for working as part of a group and giving presentations on the course material, both tasks that would have hindered other students’ learning had I not completed them. My other two courses suffered significantly as I was overall unable to submit the final assignments. Over the summer without school, managing my time and workload became manageable and I was confident once again that I would be able to handle a reduced course load and keep up my tasks. At the end of September, however, we had to very quickly let go of a newly trained department member due to inappropriate workplace conduct. I was once again responsible for taking on an increased workload. This time, I decided to prioritize my degree-required art history classes so the mark in my elective history class suffered the most. I had been keeping up with classwork for the most part, but by the end of the semester, I found I had no time or mental bandwidth to complete the final assignment. The health condition of one of my family members had continued to worsen over the year as well and unfortunately, my Oma passed away at the end of October 2024. After all this, my apartment was likely broken into sometime around November 10th, and myself and my roommate had things stolen from us. I found it was all I could do to continue attending classes at this time and I regret that I didn’t reach out for help from a counsellor or academic advisor. After applying to a Masters program here at Queens, I realized that I needed to make a change in the way I handled stress and unexpected circumstances. I have begun to see a therapist through student wellness and will continue therapy after graduation. In the process of preparing this petition, I have had to open up to some of my friends and coworkers who noticed my struggles throughout last year; I now feel as though I have a much better support system here in Kingston and people I can rely on when I am struggling.