Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean of Studies (or to whom may this concern),

My name is Benjamin Ahn and I am appealing for a late drop in STAT 263 (Winter 2016) attempted during my second year of studies in the Concurrent Education program and Faculty of Arts and Science.

In the past two years, I found everyday to be challenge. After last year, I have promised to seek professional help to help ease my anxiety and depression. To this day, I have received the medical attention, but still require a substantial amount of time and professional help. I continually suffer from clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder. These obstacles prevented and deterred my overall performance and my ability to complete this course.

As I completed my final exams in April, I was still constantly feeling down and un-energetic with every-day tasks. I was stressed, anxious, and wondering what my family¿¿s financial status, my academic career, and my life would sprout into. My long struggle with clinical depression has lead to worse outcomes, but has seen a slight improvement from my first year course-work. As an upper-year, living off-campus, I found the next transition to be more difficult, coupled with my clinical depression. In fact, I started to notice my emotional wellbeing started to take a toll, then my physical health started to affected again. Already at 4 courses, I contemplated on dropping STAT 263 or another course that can be deferred in later years. However, I kept continuing with my course of study instead of dropping and going down to three courses in fear that my OSAP would be affected (even though I¿¿m not sure if would), the anxiety and thought of financial disruption when my current family finances are not properly in order had me feel an extensive realm of anxiety, hence my reason not dropping it before the February deadline. I had immense family pressure to complete as many courses as I can to ensure on-time graduation, was a large factor, and with everything on my plate, I couldn¿¿t distinguish what was right and wrong. Struggling with a mental illness such as depression emotionally and physically drains you. Knowing my family¿¿s financial health was poor, I only saw the way out was to complete STAT 263 and not dropping the course. Attempting to treat my illness without my family knowing about my condition is tough. However, until then, these choices that were laid across became extremely hard to deal with. I still constantly noticed that everyday was a chore and a struggle. Getting through lectures and tutorials were extremely difficult ¿¿ where it became a chore and not an enjoyment for the course content. I found that living (doing normal daily routines) was difficult and was ultimately discouraged to do anything, but to lie in bed morning to night. Two weeks before my STAT 263 exam, I noticed I was extremely tired and emotionless which left me in bed and times of frustration. I was so overwhelmed that I did not write the STAT 263 exam and chose to defer the exam until the summer because my mental state was not in the right position to be writing a 60 exam. This then continued my downward spiral into examination season, and affected the rest of my exams (CHEM 222 and CHEM 223).

As for my IN for STAT 263, my instructor, Charles Molson, has kindly deferred my final exam. However, because of my ongoing illness, I am not in a position to write this exam. Writing this exam at this point in time, would not only lead to an anxiety relapse, but also a depression relapse as well. I continue to feel extremely fatigue, unmotivated, cognitively absent and constant side effects from my medication. I hope to use this summer to continue my therapy and cope with my illness.

This summer, I am spending much of my time at my physician in Toronto, which left extremely valuable time that I had, to waste. Repeating my past thoughts of withdrawing from my studies from Queen¿¿s, I noticed my continued impulsivity and reaction to escape this dark hole I was digging myself in. I had no idea why I continued to feel the same way I felt last year, but if there¿¿s one thing to be said; I noticed some improvement, yet a lot of emotional and psychological mobility that has contributed to my academic hardship, this year. A lot of my term was spent conducting ¿¿self-care¿ routines to ensure that I was not in any danger of harming myself physically and emotionally. This included going to appointments in Kingston and Toronto.

For the future, I do not want to continue feeling like this during my studies. What I can say, is that, I sought professional help from a psychiatric physician referred from my family doctor. I will also attempt to take a lesser course load if necessary to focus more on my personal needs. On advice of a family physician in Toronto, I will also be transferring institutions to be closer to home, to better obtain the medical care that I require. I will be attending a different institution and will not return to Queen¿¿s, to allow for sufficient recovery and taking next steps to ratify my mental illness that I struggled with since my first year of university.