Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To Whom It May Concern,

I am requesting an appeal for the Fall 2014 and Winter 2015 terms of my third year in the Faculty of English and Political Science. I am requesting that I be able to drop all the courses from both semesters past the academic deadlines, and request a credit standing in the one course that I did not fail, but still performed very poorly in as a result of my circumstances. I have been suffering from severe depression and as a result my academic situation has extremely fallen.

I was diagnosed in June with depression and came back to Queens in September hoping that I would be able to manage my mental health on my own. I was very mistaken. After my education began to suffer, due to my inability to leave the house and participate in classes consistently, as well as a lack of motivation in course work, I sought help from a counselor and began to take medication. The medication however had an adverse effect, and caused me to fall even more behind, as the anti-depressants made me no longer care about school. By the time, the true effects of the medication came to my attention, it was already December and I was late on all my assignments, but still had a chance to pass. However, I stopped taking the medication and went through a fairly bad withdrawal process that left my mental and emotional state far worse than before. This withdrawal left me with incomplete assignments and caused me to perform very poorly on the Fall term exams.

Though I attempted to recuperate over the break and return with the hopes of improving my academics, personal issues and problems, along with the extreme low from the withdrawal weighed my mental state down even more. I became even more unable to leave the house or do anything productive. Furthermore I began to suffer from intense anxiety and have panic attacks at the thought of my falling education. All of these factors caused me to avoid school and not attend any classes in the Winter semester. Despite prompting from my counselor, fear of another situation like the last has hindered me from attempting to go on a different medication, and so my depression reached an extreme. Thus, this semester I have not attended any classes, participated in anyway or completed any assignments and as such am in no way prepared for exams.

I am completely aware of the severity of the situation and am extremely apologetic that it has come this far, but I am committed to getting better. My counselor has provided a letter detailing the logistics of my mental health issues and its effects on my education. I have an appointment with a family doctor to discuss other medicinal options, as well as continued support from my counselor, and through this I hope to begin to deal with my depression better so to move forward with my education and my life.

I hope that you will take my appeal into consideration, and help me overcome this obstacle in my life.

Thank you,
Amanda Mathew