Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean of Life sciences,

Thank you for hearing my case. I wish to appeal to have these listed courses from the winter semester of 2015 removed from my transcript. Although I had enrolled in and paid for these courses, I did not attend any lectures, labs or tutorials, or perform any kind of academic assessment for any of them. Because of ongoing familial problems, difficulties in my own social relationships and my general state of mind at the time, I was extremely depressed and due to my emotional instability I could not attend these lectures and was negligent on dropping them by the appropriate deadline.
The explanations for the extenuating circumstances leading up to my absence are as follows:

Familial problems
During the last couple of years my parent's relationship has become more and more aggressive both towards each other and towards me. They would come to Kingston for a visit about every two weeks, but on more than half of these visits an argument would break out between them that I would inevitably be dragged into. They would make attacks against each other through me, making me take a side or have to listen to them. The worst of these exchanges occurred during the last few weeks of summer before the fall semester began (2014). We were on vacation and during an argument, in order to get to my father my mom told me about my cousin's wife and how she had an affair with another one of my cousins on my dad's side of the family. She also began to insult my father's parents which prompted my father to tell me that my mom's father did not pass away peacefully but had committed suicide instead. My mom's reaction was enough to tell me that this was not a lie, and that, combined with the experience of witnessing my father whom I have so much love and respect saying such devastating things, took a severe mental toll on me. It was from there that I really began to notice an overall decline in myself, and every other week from then I got a firsthand account of how my parents were edging closer and closer to the brink of divorce. This pattern of arguing continued until March 8 (their last visit of that semester and also my birthday) where my parents sat in my room arguing for most of the night (with my roommates still in the house) and planning out their divorce. At that point my parents were still unaware of my anxiety and mental state and that I was not attending my winter classes. They were also unaware that I had not attended my neuroanatomy final exam (which I take full responsibility for).

Social relationships
Due to the aforementioned events, from the beginning of the fall semester I became significantly more distant and cold towards the people I knew, which put a strain on my relationships with them. This led to multiple falling outs with some of my closest friends which ultimately made me more depressed.

The sum of these events led to my mental state and condition at the time. I have not consulted with a doctor at this point, as I have been trying to work through these issues myself. Things are currently better between my parents as I have already discussed with them everything that has been brought up in this letter. They have not gotten a divorce and their relationship is better now than it has been in a while. I am feeling better in terms of my emotions and anxiety as I work through things, now I would only like to move forward and addressing this is the first step. Thank you again for your time.

Sincerely,

Mehran Mirzakhanlou