Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Queen's University
June 11, 2016

Appeal Letter for the Faculty's Decision

I am writing to appeal the Faculty of Arts' decision that I must withdraw from Queen's University for one year. Hopefully this letter could clearly state my correspondence problem.
Being new to North America, I have quite enjoyed life in Canada so far. However, things are not perfect at first. I have suffered two major problems when I first came to this beautiful place. The first and foremost issue was my mental health statement. Frankly, I was living under enormous pressure due to the family situation since last year. My father was always rude and strict to me so that I was always unconfident about myself and tried to shirk my life. Last summer due to a serious financial problem, it affected me a lot and I could barely describe these suffering days. This has also been a major reason that I chose to study in Canada alone. I want to prove I am a grown girl, and I would succeed despite being alone. But things are not always as easy as imagined. I have spent much time fighting for myself the whole year, which has made me to pay for my own grades. Another important reason was the 'culture shock'. I guess this is supposed to be a common issue for some new international students. One important factor that I have noticed was that I did not have as strong background knowledge as most of the other international students. Therefore, I needed spend more time and try harder than them so as to follow my study.
I am appealing because I am feeling better as time goes on with a good medical treatment. Also, during the past year study, I have developed many precious characteristics which I have pursued for a long time. The most thing that I have learned was to be optimistic during combating stress. Living and studying aboard alone must be tough for a young girl, but they were those experiences that make me realize who I am right now and what I need to do to succeed. I must be adaptable so that I could quickly follow up any changes in my life; I must be versatile so that I would find that learning different cultures might become more appealing to me; I must also be industrious so that I got what I worked for.
It is true that I did not work hard enough for my school work due to a mental problem and culture difference. But being conscious about myself, I now put more emphases on the future work. I have transformed from a cynical young girl to an adaptable college student; I have transformed from an unconfident foreigner to a versatile 'Canadian'; and I have transformed from a protracted person to an industrious Mengxi. Most significantly, I have confidence that I would be able to compete any incoming challenges. If I am able to come back to Queen's, I will retake Political Studies110, Mathematics126 and Psychology100 with a average GPA of 1.8 in the fall and winter semesters. After that I will apply for the major in department of Political Studies and take corresponding courses in summer semester as well. I know that my first year's performance was not satisfying at all; however, I would truly appreciate if you could give me another opportunity to prove myself. I have become more competitive than I ever was so that I do not wish to lag behind other students.

Yours Sincerely,
Mengxi Li
11 June, 2016