Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Members of the Register Office:

This is Jie Li (ID: 20053619), and I am writing here to explain my circumstances further and sincerely hope that you can understand my conditions and consider the academic decision of my dropping courses in Fall 2018. There are several reasons to explain my poor behaviours this semester.

Due to the increasingly severe mental health condition, I request to drop cisc124, cisc203, cisc204, cisc220 and musc104, which are all courses in Fall 2018. Maybe because of the drug adjustment, I could not sleep at night, and the quality of sleep was not good, so I could not get up in the morning and could not attend classes on time. Even if I barely get up, I would fall asleep in class due to the bad state. Furthermore, I couldn't focus on what the teacher had said. I was down in spirits for a long time and could not wholly concentrate on study. I became grumpy, incommunicative and suffered from terrible insomnia. The situation began to get worse in early November. When I realized that something was wrong, I worked very hard to overcome the difficulties I was facing with, but the situation was intensified. I went to the doctor for help and reached out to the therapist.

Besides, studying at Queen's University was quite demanding. I still itched for keeping my excellence. I have been an outstanding student before. I often felt anxious about losing my competence when compared with many capable classmates. The high-pressure worries and depression became a little out of control these days.

Consequently, the unfavourable physical and psychologic condition negatively interfere with my performance. Finally, around November 10, I broke down, and I couldn't sleep all night, and I cried in despair. Although I tried my best to overcome the problem, my efforts did not pay off. Faced with this situation, I began to think about relieving academic pressure and focusing on treatment.

After dropping all the classes in this semester, I will reduce the pressure of courses in the next semester and choose three elective courses online. Because of the online courses, my time is relatively more flexible so that I can focus on treatment with time and energy. I will communicate with my doctor more regularly for psychological counselling and medication. Also, I plan to complete the remaining three elective courses in the summer. While reducing the number of courses in the future, I will keep updating my knowledge to catch the steps of my classmates. Next September, I am going to retake my main courses, because, in the first half semester, my grades are not bad, even if I retake the main courses, the pressure will not be so high, and most of the knowledge for me is equivalent to reviewing. I hope this plan can restore me to the normal state of study.

I sincerely hope you could consider favourably the circumstances I am in and the difficulties I encountered. I am looking forward to your reply.
Thanks and regards.

Sincerely yours,
Jie