Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associated Dean of Studies,
I am appealing to drop LINEAR ALGEBRA 110 (Full year course 2017-2018), as well as the faculty of arts and sciences decision that I must withdraw from Queens for a minimum of one year.
Over the last two years of my life I have faced a variety of mental, physical, and emotional challenges that have led to a decrease in my academic performance. During my first year at Queens university my relationship with my boyfriend of 4 years ended unexpectedly around the end of first semester. The sudden loss of someone I had grown so attached to over those few years sent me into a depressive state. I lost all motivation to do everyday basic things such as getting out of bed, eating, exercising, socializing, and most importantly, my school work. I lost the ability to focus on my work or study for my exams which had a huge affect on all my grades which was what lead me to be placed on probation. Instead of reaching out for help I just hoped that with time I would be able to pick myself up and excel in second year to bring my GPA back up. However, second year is where my real-life challenges began. During the summer before second year I met someone new but that unfortunately only lasted 6 months before I had found out that he had cheated on me in December (2017). Once again, I found myself broken, alone, sad, and depressed. Even though I thought things couldn¿¿t get any worse, as a result of the cheating, a few weeks later I was diagnosed with an incurable life long sexually transmitting disease. After hearing this news was when I mentally hit rock bottom. I felt alone and found myself spending my days in bed, unable to find motivation to get up, causing me to miss class, miss assignments, and overall do poorly in all my courses. Even though I tried my best to keep up with work and attending class, I was never able to focus as my mind was always thinking about everything else going on in my life. I had felt like my entire world had just been completely flipped around and I essentially just gave up on myself. Missing class because I couldn¿¿t get out of bed, not being able to finish assignments, and not being able to focus when studying for tests is what had affected my grades the most, especially linear algebra. Linear Algebra was my most challenging class that required the most amount of time for the weekly assignments and required the most amount of concentration to really understand the material. With my inability to focus in lecture, concentrate while studying or complete assignments, I lost a lot of important marks which caused my grade in the class to quickly decline.
On top of all my personal issues, I was also dealing with some family issues. Near the beginning of my first semester (2017) my older brother was sent into rehab for a drug addiction problem, which also contributed to my inability to focus and do well in my second year. Words cannot describe how difficult it is to watch someone you love struggle with something so serious. I found myself continuously worrying about him and his well being which was extremely distracting during school. I could also see how much stress this put on my parents and I couldn¿¿t burden them with anymore bad news which is why I chose to keep all my problems to myself. But not having my parents or brother to talk to made me feel isolated and alone when going through the hardest year of my life. It wasn¿¿t until I finally decided that I needed to see a few councillor¿¿s that I began to feel better. Being able to talk to someone, and just building a support team made a huge difference. During the second half of second semester I began to feel better, went to all my classes, spent hours in the library, and even reached out to tutors. By doing all this I was able to raise most of my grades slightly, but there wasn¿¿t enough time to make a very big difference. Unfortunately, right before April final exams, my brother had been kicked out of re-hab. I was extremely distracted when studying for exams, especially my linear algebra exam which I did poorly on, as I was extremely worried about my brother going back to substance abuse. I was able to do get decent marks on all my finals except linear algebra as it required a lot more focus causing me to fail the course keeping me on probation.