Petition Letter
Dear Associate Dean,
I am appealing to waive the one-term deadline to drop courses after the last official date for dropping classes in the Fall Term and Winter Term of my second year at Queen's (Sep 2015-Apr 2016).
During my second year at Queen's and since leaving at the end of my winter term, I have been dealing with a major depressive disorder, an eating disorder, and significant feelings of anxiety (that started in my first year) that prevented me from considering at all the possibility of improving my grades or even resuming my academic studies in the new year to come. I was not ready to make the decision to return, let alone write to appeal the courses that my mental health problems seriously affected. I was solely focussed on resolving the issues, both with myself and having a lot to do with my grandmother's passing, as well as my father's subsequent decision to move to live in South Korea that caused me to lose motivation in the past school year and feel constantly hopeless and fatigued. I went on a trip with my sister in May 2016, right after school was finished, to England and Belgium for three weeks in hopes of recovering from some of the problems that I was facing at school and home. I always felt much too anxious to see a counsellor outside of Queen's or get professionally evaluated for the distress I felt on a daily basis, but I was determined to do things to learn how to help myself get better. Soon after returning from this trip, I also applied to a job, hoping to figure out what to do during my time off from school, and my boss sent me to Taiwan in June 2016 for five weeks to master the Japanese-style cheesecake he was going to begin selling. I completely stopped having suicidal thoughts in Taiwan and I was too busy being excited to even worry about my eating disorder. I have been working at the cake shop ever since returning to Canada (July 2016) and although I've learned very much, working has not been as fulfilling as I had hoped for it to be.
Last month in January 2017, I missed work shifts for the first time and struggled once more with my eating, though I noticed I never again felt depressed. I did not leave my house for close to one month. But because I again experienced another version of feeling anxious and mentally unwell, I've finally proved to myself that I am now truly capable of taking care of myself and continue progressing, even when things get difficult. I video call my father almost every single day and I've learned to stop isolating myself and being so angry. Most importantly, I finally feel ready to appeal. I desperately want to go back to studying at Queen's in the fall. With the help of academic counsellors, I've developed a very hopeful and sustainable plan for my academics and personal well-being for the year to come, and a set of goals that I know will help me to keep up my successes: something I'd be honoured to explain in more detail in a second letter to appeal to drop the courses that I could not pass last year. I have been planning to return to my studies since December and my goals and feelings of anticipation and hope have only continued to get stronger since.
Sincerely,
Christina Lee
I am appealing to waive the one-term deadline to drop courses after the last official date for dropping classes in the Fall Term and Winter Term of my second year at Queen's (Sep 2015-Apr 2016).
During my second year at Queen's and since leaving at the end of my winter term, I have been dealing with a major depressive disorder, an eating disorder, and significant feelings of anxiety (that started in my first year) that prevented me from considering at all the possibility of improving my grades or even resuming my academic studies in the new year to come. I was not ready to make the decision to return, let alone write to appeal the courses that my mental health problems seriously affected. I was solely focussed on resolving the issues, both with myself and having a lot to do with my grandmother's passing, as well as my father's subsequent decision to move to live in South Korea that caused me to lose motivation in the past school year and feel constantly hopeless and fatigued. I went on a trip with my sister in May 2016, right after school was finished, to England and Belgium for three weeks in hopes of recovering from some of the problems that I was facing at school and home. I always felt much too anxious to see a counsellor outside of Queen's or get professionally evaluated for the distress I felt on a daily basis, but I was determined to do things to learn how to help myself get better. Soon after returning from this trip, I also applied to a job, hoping to figure out what to do during my time off from school, and my boss sent me to Taiwan in June 2016 for five weeks to master the Japanese-style cheesecake he was going to begin selling. I completely stopped having suicidal thoughts in Taiwan and I was too busy being excited to even worry about my eating disorder. I have been working at the cake shop ever since returning to Canada (July 2016) and although I've learned very much, working has not been as fulfilling as I had hoped for it to be.
Last month in January 2017, I missed work shifts for the first time and struggled once more with my eating, though I noticed I never again felt depressed. I did not leave my house for close to one month. But because I again experienced another version of feeling anxious and mentally unwell, I've finally proved to myself that I am now truly capable of taking care of myself and continue progressing, even when things get difficult. I video call my father almost every single day and I've learned to stop isolating myself and being so angry. Most importantly, I finally feel ready to appeal. I desperately want to go back to studying at Queen's in the fall. With the help of academic counsellors, I've developed a very hopeful and sustainable plan for my academics and personal well-being for the year to come, and a set of goals that I know will help me to keep up my successes: something I'd be honoured to explain in more detail in a second letter to appeal to drop the courses that I could not pass last year. I have been planning to return to my studies since December and my goals and feelings of anticipation and hope have only continued to get stronger since.
Sincerely,
Christina Lee