Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean (Studies),

My name is Ashley Quan, and I am entering my fourth year at Queen's University. I am requesting to waive the appeal deadline for the following courses: ARTH 228, GNDS 215, GNDS 311, GNDS 312, GNDS 321, HIST 121.

Throughout my entire university education thus far, I have been struggling with depression and anxiety. I often deal with extreme feelings of sadness, numbness, and frustration. My mental health concerns frequently impact my ability in normal daily functioning. For instance, seemingly easy tasks, such as getting out of bed or leaving my house, become challenging - at times, impossible. I have had difficulty attending class, completing coursework, and participating in tutorials because of this. I struggle with intense feelings of guilt and anxiety and feel undeserving of help and support in both my personal and academic life. All of this has impacted my ability to be productive, my ability to focus, my motivation and my energy levels.

On top of this, my mother was diagnosed with Cancer in July 2015. Dealing with my mother's diagnosis has made this past school year in particular more challenging than most - especially when she was going through her Chemotherapy treatments during the 2016 winter semester. Feeling concern and worry over my mother's health made it even harder to focus on my academics. I struggled immensely to keep up with the coursework and felt extremely guilty when I was unable to.
Confronting how all of this has impacted me and my academics has been challenging for me. It causes me extreme distress and anxiety, making it tough to move on to the next step, hence my difficulty in writing the appeal.

To deal with these circumstances, I have been seeing a Psychological Associate since my first semester at Queen's in Fall 2013, but I have also recently begun seeing a Psychiatrist in Toronto who has prescribed me a new anti-depressant, which I am now taking. I registered with Accessibility Services in the past and have met with an Academic Advisor, as well.

In the future, I intend to continue seeing my Psychological Associate once school resumes. I will also continue to meet with my Psychiatrist in the hopes of figuring out which medications work best for me. I expect to register with Accessibility Services again. I plan to look into other resources at Queen's, such as the Writing Centre and Learning Strategies in order to seek help in maintaining a quality academic standard for myself. I am also considering taking a lighter course load in the upcoming school year so that I may increase the concentration of my focus in the work that I do. Moving forward, I believe that these steps will help me to reach my goal of successfully completing my undergraduate degree at Queen's.