Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Academic Associate Dean,

I am appealing to drop my PHYS117 (Full year Fall/Winter 2021-2022) course. I have been experiencing extenuating circumstances beyond my control that became increasingly more serious as exam season approached. I have been dealing with the separation of my parents during my year at Queen's and it has been particularly difficult to manage during the second half of the winter semester. As we approached the date I would be returning home after exams, the personal family problems heightened and was taking up a large amount of my day and energy. In return this had a great effect on my mental health. I have dealt with issues concerning my mental health in the past, but this circumstance has caused a large flare up in those issues. Balancing my personal family problems, with my worsened mental health, along with preparing for exams and the stress that comes naturally with exam season, I found myself really struggling. I had even had appointments with the doctors at Queen's to address health concerns in which I was told they were most likely physical symptoms I was experiencing from my mental health issues.

I knew that I needed to make an effort to get support and treat my mental health, but since this was occuring during the exam period, I chose to prioritize my studying as I had a tight timeframe between my five final exams. Approaching my final PHYS117 exam I found myself extremely distressed. I had found PHYS117 to be my hardest class throughout the entire year and knew that I would need to do well on this final exam to successfully pass the course. I had begun to find my work in the course started to be affected by my extenuating circumstances. This created much more personal stress for my final exam. I had not previously dropped the course because I knew that I needed to complete the physics credits at some point during my undergraduate career and had underestimated how much my personal circumstances would affect my studies. I believed I could have pushed through the course and achieved a passing grade and had not expected my mental health state to deteriorate as it had. Due to the amount of pressure I had on myself to succeed on my PHYS117 exam, I faced the consequences of my worsened mental health symptoms. Ultimately, this led to me failing the course.

The peak of my worsened mental health due to my extenuating circumstance of my family problems occurred during April. Late March I could very much see an increase in severity in my personal family problems and April is when I found my mental health worsening in a way that has not happened in years. While living at home with my parents, I had not been able to properly receive any sort of professional help or treatment for my mental health. This made it difficult for me to feel comfortable enough to seek that help on my own during my time at Queen's this past school year. I realize and understand that my health is fully my own responsibility and I should have reached out for help when I noticed I needed it, rather than letting it have such an impact on my life and most importantly my studies. This is especially something I am trying to work on, alongside improving my mental health.

To achieve academic success, I am currently taking the beginning steps needed to not only improve my mental health, but learn to regulate my emotions during this time period of my parents separation. I have spoken with a few academic advisors of proceeding steps in my academic career and plan to retake the PHYS117 course in the future when I won't end up in the same position I was in this year. I am currently enrolled in an online course during this summer term, to not only help my GPA, but lessen my course load during the fall to avoid the distress felt with my full course load this past winter term. I am taking measures to improve my mental health and am already looking into support and treatment I will be able to receive during the year while living in Kingston. I have been looking into the student support/ accommodations that Queen's University offers and am prepared to take the measures necessary to prevent another flare up like this past April to occur without any sort of support and/ or treatment. Due to my extenuating circumstances of family problems and unexpected mental health issues, I am appealing to drop my PHYS117 course.

Thank you very much for the consideration.
Venessa Corrigan
20263177