Petition Letter
First year at Queen's s was not pleasant at all, I had problem fitting in, and struggled a lot with all aspects of school life. When I appealed to remove the RTW I did not feel comfortable sharing my experiences. My counsellor Dr. Khanna has encouraged me to share these with you. There will also be a letter directly from her.
As a BIPOC who came from a diverse high school, I felt extremely out of place at Queen's, I tried my hardest to make friends from orientation week as well as from the residence. But all the micro aggressions and culture barriers just made me so exhausted and anxious all the time. I remember how I couldn't leave my room for 2 days because of the anxious of not having any friends in the orientation week, and how I didn't show up for any group activities without any texts from my Gaels.
Being a Tibetan descent who grew up in China, I've always been scared to be open about my heritage growing up. Before the beginning of my first year, I decided that this has to change, so I apply for Indigenous and Allies Living Learning Community in Chown Hall in order to educate myself and be more courageous to my own Tibetan heritage. With this belief, I participated in most of the floor activities which were held by my don, who is a First Nation student. But only ended up with frustration and sorrows after I found out that after a whole semester, my don couldn't even remember my name. More sadly, I felt that even she herself, is not quite willing to share her own cultural background. In the following year, a racist, homophobic and violent message was posted inside the common room in chown hall, where I have lived for a whole year.
After the first semester, I have never shared my cultural background with anyone again, through a strong fear of being labeled as a product of affirmative action. I felt alienated from the crowd, and the constantly feeling of being grasped by depression and anxiety. I had to learn how to cope with loss of confidence I even couldn't go to my sociology tutorial, because I'm afraid of being one of the only two ethnically different people in the whole room.
Reflecting on my academy grades, I think I clearly didn't get enough information about the courses. Thus, overestimated my capability when selecting the courses.
My plan was to go for sociology, but I found computer science very interesting, so I chose all those comsci required courses, and ended up getting all frustrated and failed. Now thinking back at it, I think it's partly due to my poor time management and the stress I was getting when adopting a completely new environment.
For the past two years, I have been questioning my academic ability as well as social skills.
During my withdrawal year, I completed a 3-month intensive French course and I took the Law School Admission Test.
Despite from all those difficulties and failures, I think I will keep pursuing my dream, which is to go to law school after graduation. To achieve this goal, I still want to give psychology a try, no matter how hard it is to get in. Meanwhile, I will retake sociology, to give myself a plan B. I would really appreciate it if the faculty can help me to drop out Math111 and CISC121, in order to repair my GPA.
Please also find a letter from Dr. Khanna from Students Wellness Center.
As a BIPOC who came from a diverse high school, I felt extremely out of place at Queen's, I tried my hardest to make friends from orientation week as well as from the residence. But all the micro aggressions and culture barriers just made me so exhausted and anxious all the time. I remember how I couldn't leave my room for 2 days because of the anxious of not having any friends in the orientation week, and how I didn't show up for any group activities without any texts from my Gaels.
Being a Tibetan descent who grew up in China, I've always been scared to be open about my heritage growing up. Before the beginning of my first year, I decided that this has to change, so I apply for Indigenous and Allies Living Learning Community in Chown Hall in order to educate myself and be more courageous to my own Tibetan heritage. With this belief, I participated in most of the floor activities which were held by my don, who is a First Nation student. But only ended up with frustration and sorrows after I found out that after a whole semester, my don couldn't even remember my name. More sadly, I felt that even she herself, is not quite willing to share her own cultural background. In the following year, a racist, homophobic and violent message was posted inside the common room in chown hall, where I have lived for a whole year.
After the first semester, I have never shared my cultural background with anyone again, through a strong fear of being labeled as a product of affirmative action. I felt alienated from the crowd, and the constantly feeling of being grasped by depression and anxiety. I had to learn how to cope with loss of confidence I even couldn't go to my sociology tutorial, because I'm afraid of being one of the only two ethnically different people in the whole room.
Reflecting on my academy grades, I think I clearly didn't get enough information about the courses. Thus, overestimated my capability when selecting the courses.
My plan was to go for sociology, but I found computer science very interesting, so I chose all those comsci required courses, and ended up getting all frustrated and failed. Now thinking back at it, I think it's partly due to my poor time management and the stress I was getting when adopting a completely new environment.
For the past two years, I have been questioning my academic ability as well as social skills.
During my withdrawal year, I completed a 3-month intensive French course and I took the Law School Admission Test.
Despite from all those difficulties and failures, I think I will keep pursuing my dream, which is to go to law school after graduation. To achieve this goal, I still want to give psychology a try, no matter how hard it is to get in. Meanwhile, I will retake sociology, to give myself a plan B. I would really appreciate it if the faculty can help me to drop out Math111 and CISC121, in order to repair my GPA.
Please also find a letter from Dr. Khanna from Students Wellness Center.