Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

I am writing this letter in order to petition for courses ECON 222, ENIN 240, FILM 236, and, STAT 263 based on the following grounds of unforeseen mental health circumstances. Personal events that occured within the winter academic semester greatly affected my academic performance in these listed courses.

In December of 2022 around exam season my mental health started to slowly decline due to stressful times of exams and the poor weather. When I came back home for Christmas break I started to isolate myself from my friends and family due to the way I was feeling at the time. Due to isolating myself for a couple weeks I began to do the same when I returned to Kingston for the 2023 winter semester. The fatigue and loss of interest in almost all activities resulted in me isolating myself more, even from my closest friends. My mental health caused me to oversleep and to lose my focus and concentration. As school started in January I was trying my best to keep up with my classes and I was on track for a few weeks. Around the end of February/ start of March my mental health started rapidly declining and it was very hard for me to leave my house and even my room. Due to this mental health decline I started falling behind in my classes as I found it very hard to do anything at all. I stopped going to my QWFM and QWI meetings that I was a member of and stopped taking classes at QDC. I isolated myself from everyone around me for reasons with my mental health that I am still trying to understand myself. I knew I could reach out to friends/ family and to various mental health programs at Queens about my hard times but unfortunately to my own wrongdoings I did not. I understand that there were various options for me to get help at this time but I was scared to face my own truth of how I was feeling. From falling behind in these courses and being in a bad head space I distanced myself from my classes. It was causing me anxiety to even look at my workload for these classes and how much I have missed that I would limit myself from doing that. Unfortunately my unforeseen mental health circumstances throughout the winter 2023 semester affected my academic performance for courses ECON 222, ENIN 240, FILM 236, and, STAT 263.

Throughout the past couple weeks I have started opening up to those around me who are helping me through this period and trying to find me help for my mental health. I realize that I cannot continue on in headspace and I am trying to find ways to make changes to my lifestyle to combat this. I want to be a great student, friend and member of the community once again as I was in my first year at Queens University. Going into the fall 2023 semester I have made plans to join QWFM and QWI again, as well as taking classes at QDC once again. I have made a commitment to go to therapy at least once a week so I can make sure that I do not lose control of my mental wellbeing again and/ or get help from a therapist if my mental health declines again. When retaking these courses I am planning to seek out help from professors and teacher’s assistants when I need it, and to attend office hours as well. I also plan on seeking out tutoring from ASUS peer tutoring for the essential courses I need in order to graduate. Queen's University has been my biggest dream for a long time and I want to make my younger self and loved ones around me proud of what I know I can accomplish here. I hope you consider this petition as I want to get better and create a great future for myself.