Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean (Studies),
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I would like to appeal to drop CISC 204, CISC 223, CISC 235 for both Winter, 2014 and Winter, 2015 terms, and CISC 260 (Winter, 2014), CISC 221 (Winter,2015), and Math 111(Fall/Winter, 2014 and Fall/Winter, 2015)

Beginning around September 2013, which was my first time completely living on my own, there was a major impact to my social abilities not seen while living in residence. Since my parents were overseas, and my nearest family members thousands of kilometers away, I felt very lonely at Queens. This caused my grades to falter, which then led to depression. I struggled by myself, and did not want to talk to anyone including my parents and my close friends. What was more pressing on my mind was that I felt sorry towards my parents for failing to live up to their expectations as their child. As a result I became more and more depressed, leading to a very deep slide in my mental state, which ended up becoming a huge and sudden drop in my grades in Winter 2014. When I went back for my 2014 -2015 School year, I tried to fix the mistakes I made in 2014. However, the pressure was too high for me to handle. I did not cope well with the extra stress of trying to make up the courses I failed or did not do well in the year before. It ended up being that I did even worse in the repeat of second year, having my second semester scores drop to even lower than of the first time I took these classes. That, combined with the already present depression, caused issues that I have only recently managed to solve.

At the beginning of this year, I realized that I really wanted to change and get back on the right path in terms of my future. I informed to my family about my situation, started seeking help from an academic adviser and psychologist, and took their suggestions into account for my future. From their guidance, I have begun to rebuild my life skills, building a schedule that I do follow, playing more sports to trai my willpower, and making sure I am ready for university again. By building up a schedule and playing sports, I make it easier to adapt to a full university schedule. While evaluating what I needed to change, I also went back and took a look at my thought process when choosing a major in first year. I had come to Queens to major in the humanities, but chose computing because future careers seemed more stable with computing. This was never suited to my way of thinking. Instead, looking through the lessons I've learned now, I've rediscovered my passion for history. I have decided, after many nights of thinking, that changing majors to history would be the best course of action, as it utilizes my strengths in writing and understanding events. By doing something that I have the passion for, I feel as though I will be more than capable of being academically successful. I have also made preparations to meet with an academic adviser frequently in order to map my current process and see where I can improve upon. Emotionally, I have revised my way of thinking, so that I am better prepared to face academic and social challenges. I have also spoken at length with my psychologist, who I will contact in times where I start to feel depressed again. As of right now, I currently feel that I am ready and able to take on academia again. This opportunity will not be wasted, and I hope you shall give me the chance to be academically successful, and allow me to shake off my past academic issues due to depression.