Petition Letter
Hello, my name is William McBride, student number 20276984, I am writing for a late appeal to drop two courses from my first year studying at Queens. I failed my Philosophy 111(B) and my History 109. I was a competent student for my first semester at Queens, adapting to the new environment, trying my best to balance work and a new life, I was decently successful with a B- for Philosophy 111 at the end of the first Semester and similarly corresponding grades with my other courses. However the switch to asynchronous learning for the first couple months of semester two really worsened my mental health. I've only been living in Canada for the past three (then, two) years, almost all of which has been throughout the pandemic, I don't have roots here or an independent social support network aside from the friends I made in the first semester at Queens. I am somewhat estranged from my family because I have a step mom and it has created an actively emotionally abusive or non-actively traumatic environment, and so for those two months where everyone else decided to go home and live with their parents, I chose to stay in Residence. I didn't want to go back to my family because I feared my mental health would take a plunge. So here I was, living practically alone in Victoria Hall in the dead of winter with no structure to my day or socialization for my mind. It was a bad time in my life, it felt like every day was spent in darkness, of the literal and metaphorical variety. Needless to say I didn't produce a lot of work during this time, my academics really fell. By the time classes returned to in person and my newfound friends had returned to campus, so much work had built up that the stress of balancing all my courses and the backlogs of work became too much to handle. Furthermore the social dynamics of my Residence wing took a turn for the traumatic, there was serious blowback from a sexual assault that took place towards the end of the first semester, I was caught up in the scandal because as a guy I was privy to information but I was also a friend to the girls of my wing. For a collection of reasons, my race (I am a mixed race half asian) definitely playing a part, I was ostracized from the men of my wing, which I didn't really protest but it definitely impacted my mental health. Eventually our Don would quit from the stress of the wing and I cannot blame her, another of my wing mates transferred out due to the harassment. This was a very turbulent time for my mental health, and I cannot say that I produced my best work during these conditions. For reference I lived in VIC 4E. I'm requesting to drop two grades because those two were the most affected by these extenuating circumstances, I didn't think to file an appeal earlier because I was bound to a sense of fatalism, that this was just how things were going to be, and for the last few months I have been working very hard at a retirement home which as the nexus of service and health is a site of rampant exploitation and racial hierarchy. I hope this brief period of my life does not seriously impact my future studies more than it already has. Thank you for your time and understanding, Benen.