Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear artsci academic associate dean,

I am petitioning the faculty's decision that I must withdraw for one year. Throughout the past school year I struggled immensely with my anxiety and depression, which negatively impacted my academic and regular functioning. I struggled to do things a regular person would, like getting out of bed and going to class, eating, and keeping up with my personal hygiene. Being in a single room relieved my crippling anxiety by having a space of my own, yet I became so comfortable in said space and dreaded leaving my room. I felt an immense amount of fear towards others in my residence and on campus and felt as if they could sense my stress and in a way, read my mind and understand the hardships I was going through and I would be judged harshly for it. Unless dragged out of my room by one of my friends, I would be virtually paralysed in my bed, overcome by depression and stress. The transition from being at home with family and friends to being all alone to fend for myself hit me like a truck and I definitely felt I wasn't quite prepared for it and that there wasn't the resources for me to get help and find friends. My saving grace was the varsity waterpolo team, where I met my only friends from school. I also really struggled to ask for help and when the TA strike happened, I struggled even more with the fact that there were now no tutorials. Especially for math, as I have a learning disability in that subject, along with struggles regarding my working memory. It was hard for me to focus in most public campus spots as being around a lot of others made me quite stressed. In effort to solve this issue I would attempt to complete my work in my room, so I wouldn't feel the stress from being around others, though being in my room would only benefit me as a way of stress release, not help me focus on the work I needed to be completing. Near the end of second semester my grandfather passed away. This, being my first loss in my family and being someone I was quite close with hit me very hard and really affected my ability to study and focus for my finals. The news shocked me and I had to go back home for a week for his funeral service and visitation. It was very hard to return back to school and complete my finals after experiencing all of that. Especially as my family is all quite close and my grandpa was very involved in my life.
As of now, my depression and anxiety have gotten better and Ive switched to different meds as i dont think the ones I was taking before were helping me very much. I've been seeing my therapist more often and working through the struggles I faced during school and learning different ways to help myself and getting better at letting others help me as well. My social anxiety has been getting much better as I've been working on talking to strangers, going out and trying new things more, and letting my anxious mind wander less. In the coming years, I will be living off campus with a couple friends which I believe will help me greatly with keeping up on my studies. I've proven to be better when living with others (be it family or friends) and with my friends being very studious it will be a lot easier for me to just join along in a group study/work session. Over this summer I am also reevaluating if I feel right in the program I am in (economics), and doing some online science courses to see if I would like to change my program under the artsci faculty. Doing these online classes at home is also helping me stay in a learning mindset yet with less stress, as I'm at home and only taking 1-2 classes at a time and working back into being able to balance my schedule and figure out my mental health along with learning. I have also looked into multiple resources for tutoring and extra help as well as plan to meet with an academic advisor once a month upon my return to studies at Queens to make sure I am staying on track with my classes.