Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am writing this appeal letter to waive the requirement of withdrawing for one year. I got issued this requirement as I failed ENGL 100A, ENGL 100B, HIST 104, HIST 109, LLCU 111, PYSC 100A, and PSYC 100B. The reason I am submitting this appeal is because I felt that there were extenuating circumstances that caused me to fail these classes. My negative mental health and signs of depression were these extenuating circumstances, which were caused by multiple things. These things ranging from stress from personal relationships, stress and pressure of being in university and doing well, and the natural stress of not letting your parents down. This stress of the many different negative feelings then led to the negative mental and physical health issues, which then gave me signs of depression.

At the beginning of school, being in September, I wasn??t that stressed with school and was going to all my lectures and staying on top of my work. During September was more me dealing with personal relationships outside of school that I didn??t let impact my schoolwork at that time. As an Indigenous student I had reached out to 4D and had every other week meetings with them to just check in to talk about things, mostly school. It was more when the end of October came around that I started to feel the build of stress on myself. That being classes got harder, weather got colder, less people around you, and a real sense of loneliness is what I started to feel. It??s a bit hard to explain that feeling of loneliness, I was in residence and there were students all around the same age as me dealing with the same school stuff, so you would think I wouldn??t feel alone. I think it was that I didn??t feel like I connected to a bunch of the students around me, not like my friends and family back home. I had a few solid friends in my residence but everyone became busier with school work and other personal things. I wouldn??t go outside much anymore because of the cold weather, and that led to me not staying active. Which those two things are important into my mental and physical health, because it is the natural way to make our bodies feel good and I also enjoy my own personal sports.

With these reasons that I stated, I started to not sleep well or eat well. My sleeping habits became very inconsistent and not healthy for myself to keep going with my commitments around me. Those commitments being school and me keeping up with my own self-care. I would start to not attend all of my classes or show up to my classes but not absorb the content that I usually would. I wouldn??t hand in work on time or not hand in my work all together. It was as if my motivation was gone, it felt as though my mind wasn??t in the thinking process of doing school. It felt as though I was just trying to get by and get to the end of each month so I could go home and feel better. I don??t remember much specifically from the days in November, it was as if those days were all blurring into one at times. During November I realized I needed help, but I didn??t think it was necessary for myself as I have dealt with stressful things in the past on my own before. I stopped having meetings with the 4D support because I would forget to set up meetings and just didn??t think they could fully help me. I wasn??t aware at the time of how much support I could have gotten from QSAS, and further from 4D. It wasn??t until the first week of December when I sort of kicked fully back into what was going on around me and realized that Exams were the week upcoming. I tried to do any last-minute assignments and attempted to study for my exams, but as studying goes, studying only for barely a week isn??t going to get a good mark. Covid then blew up in Ontario again, forcing everyone to go home early for Christmas break.

My break was alright, was good to be home, but I half informed my family of my school situation. I say half informed because at the time I didn??t give them the full details on how I thought I failed two courses, I just said I probably failed one course and told them a little bit about both. I felt guilty not telling them the whole details of the situation which led me to tell them fully by the end of January. The COVID outbreaks then moved everything to online schoolwork until the end of February. In the past I didn??t enjoy online schoolwork and I didn??t do well for marks in my classes. This time was much of the same for schoolwork online. Motivation getting worse, falling behind in class again, and feeling lonelier as COVID made things shutdown again which then meant I couldn??t hang out with friends. I spent the first month of online schoolwork at home, and then thinking that moving back to residence in Kingston would help, I spent the next month of online in Kingston. Online school in Kingston didn??t help with my school efforts and with what I was feeling with, but it did help me hangout with friends again which boosted my own happiness from time to time. Although, like the same things that happened in November, it happened in January, February, and March too. Days started to blur together and I felt out of the norm again with my classes and with myself, maybe not as bad as November but still similar and still happening during that time in that school year. It wasn??t until the end of March that I realized I needed to reach out for help because I felt as though I didn??t know what was going on anymore and what I could even do anymore for school.

I have now since then and more specifically in April, been in pretty consistent contact with Jessica from 4D, who has been an amazing help and guide for me trying to navigate the hard things from my first year of university. I have also been meeting with QSAS and was put into their online system, to make sure I have the constant support that I may need in the future. They have helped set up the option to see and talk to a counsellor, which was a huge help during the months of April and early May. I feel better personally now and know I have the supports that I will possibly need either next year in school or whenever and wherever I will be doing school next. I feel as though whenever I continue post-secondary schooling that I am more prepared and focused to be able to face the challenges university can give, and that I can be successful in university because of that. Thank you for reading and considering my appeal letter.