Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whomever it may concern,
When I started attending Queens last year, I was overwhelmed. As someone who suffered with social anxiety and depression, I was worried that I could not adjust to the environment. Throughout high school I was always timid and insecure. Therefore, I was lonely and led me to become emotionally inexperienced. The environment at Queen¿¿s consisted of being around people you did not know, being given great freedom and required me to be an independent, responsible student. I was inexperienced and anxious, so I crumbled. I wanted to become different from what I was in high school, but I failed. I had trouble making friends, studying and being independent. I felt ashamed and depressed. This led to every phone call I had with my mom to end with a reproach, not attending classes, and not answering the messages and calls from people back at home. I felt more hopeless and started isolating myself in my dorm room. I barely ate thus I lost 20 pounds in a period of 2 months. I stayed up all night and slept a couple hours in the day. I just escaped to my computer for most of my time and the times I wasn¿¿t on the computer my heart grew heavy and I just got lost in thoughts of negativity. I began avoiding my floor mates and going out only to get food and to shower late at night. I became ashamed at how I was living. I had convinced myself that going to class was useless. I also started getting angrier and annoyed at everyone I knew. The depression grew to hopelessness and led me to hating myself and induced suicidal thoughts. Isolating myself with my negative thoughts merely magnified my pessimism. I had plans to going through with my suicidal thoughts, but thankfully a friend back home convinced me otherwise. I felt antagonized over the thought of telling my family, however, I knew I had no choice. I met with an academic advisor at Queens a couple times and decided to go back home and applied to different universities. Before I left I met with a counselor at Queens, however it was not a good experience for the counselor told me that I was making a huge mistake going back home even after I dropped my courses. The counselor seemed baffled by my decision. The counselor proceeded to tell me they did not know how to proceed. After that experience I believed that I should not see a counselor for help and solve my problems independently. However, after a few weeks back home I decided to see a doctor, and the doctor wrote a medical note reaffirming my depression and anxiety. I went home and told my family the whole story; I dealt with the consequences and it was not a pretty sight because my family did not take the news well. After the whole commotion, my family and friends ended up supporting me and helped me with my depression. I then got a job and started exercising, and I plan to come back to school this September. However, my fail in Spanish is something that is going to stay with me my whole academic life. That is why I sincerely ask for a second chance to restart my life as a student, for not only would I try my best not to fail again, I want to enjoy the life of a student.
Sincerely,
Brian Kim.