Petition Letter
Hello, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing today in regards to an academic appeal. Considering the circumstances with COVID-19, this past year has been an unusual and difficult year to say the least. I was going into my second year (2020-2021) soon after the pandemic had started. Due to the pandemic, opposed to living on campus for my second year, my family and I thought it would be best for me to stay home and complete school from my home province British Columbia. There are many things that occurred last summer that threw me off track, one being my family selling our home and my parents moving to a different city, so I moved in with my grandparents and because of the pandemic and distance I did not see my parents often. I didn't think this would affect me, but in the grand scheme maybe it did. When school started, especially since it was remote and online, it was very hard for me to find motivation to do the work, I found myself laying in bed quite literally all day. For the first month of school(September), I would tell myself I would do the work next week, and then I fell into a bad spiral of convincing myself I would do the work later. Unfortunately in many cases this did not happen. Also, I had two surgeries ( 1 each term ), one being in November close to exams, which again made me push off the work. On November 26th 2020 I had my wisdom teeth removed, which the downtime for is not extremely long, and on February 22nd 2021, I had a septorhinoplasty to correct my breathing as well as the integrity of the structure of my nose from a past incident, the downtime for this surgery being longer and more difficult. Again this got me out of the loop for school but ultimately I believe I was suffering as well from possible depression and anxiety. I have only recently ( in the last month or so ) started to realize that perhaps my lack of motivation not just in school but life as well was maybe due to depression. I was dealing with issues such as not living with my immediate family, unnecessary stress and arguments over the phone from my roommates living at our house in kingston despite the fact that I didn't even come to Kingston once this year, and COVID-19 which in my opinions decreased everyone's quality of life seeing as things changed so quickly and everything became less joyful and more serious and worryful. Furthermore, in January of 2021, I got out of a long term relationship which also put me into another depressive cycle. I stopped eating and leaving my bed even more and was in a dark place which I have honestly never experienced. It was very scary and stressful thinking about my personal life, school life, and everything in between and wondering what I was going to do about everything in the future. I am now beginning to talk to professionals and hopefully will get a diagnosis which is what I should¿¿ve done long ago. I understand now that although things fell into an unfortunate spiral that I can reach out and get help, which is what my problem has been in the past. I am the reason for where I am right now, but I also have the power to change my future and work hard until I see the results I long for. There is no one to blame but myself and I am so angry and disappointed with myself that I let things get to the point where I essentially failed all my classes and was being so distant with almost everyone in my life. I have been extensively thinking to myself lately, I want to make this right, I want to get my grades back on track, I do. I know that if I apply myself I can do well and prosper with not only school but my personal life as well. I would be so appreciative for another opportunity to continue school, and get back on track to earning a degree. If this appeal does not go through I will have several failed classes on my transcript and will be asked to defer a year from Queens. Doing this would put me further behind than I already am, and I would love to make up for this past academic year with the year coming up.