Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean (Academic),

I am appealing to extend my IN grade for IDIS 373 (Winter, 2022), and to drop WRIT 125 (Winter, 2022). I would like to state that I was completing IN courses in the summer after my graduation, and due to my circumstances, I had not anticipated not be able to complete them and needing to appeal within the 21-day limit following my graduation, and thus I would like to kindly request that you waive ruling 3.2.1 and allow me to extend my IN for IDIS 373 and drop WRIT 125. I have reached out to the IDIS 373 professor and can confirm that she supports my appeal.

I would like to start by explaining my circumstances from the beginning. I apologize in advance for the length of this letter, but I ask that you do read all of it, as all of the details are critical. School is very important to me, and I have always strived to do very well and become a successful person. I had been doing quite well since second year as I got more accustomed to university life, although the stress and pressure I feel due to the high expectations I have for myself and those my family has for me leads to periods of severe anxiety and stress when school gets busy. I have been able to manage my time well enough to get by despite all of this, until September 2021, the beginning of my fourth year, in which I was hit by a car on highway 15 while riding my bike and suffered from a severe concussion. This accident was my first ever concussion, but it was very serious as I was unconscious for 10 minutes and woke up in the ambulance, and thus I was told to take time off from school to rest and recover. I also went to physiotherapy for my neck injury and for my eyes as I was unable to focus on words or screens since the concussion happened. My symptoms persisted and thus I had to see my family doctor and receive accommodations for school. This accident made me fall behind in my fourth year which resulted in a lot of stress and anxiety as it was my last year. After half of the semester had gone by, I had previous plans to go to Barcelona with my family during reading week. I did not want to miss this because of my concussion, so I went anyways. On one of the last days, I went on a bike ride with my brother, which involved a lot of hills. Over time, the uphill riding made my symptoms flare up and I felt very lightheaded. On the way down a hill, I hit a pothole and flew off the bike and slid down the road. I injured my face, and the whole left side of my body, including my hand. I was not wearing a helmet as this was supposed to be a recreational ride, so the impact on my head without a helmet made my already existing concussion much worse. After this accident, my recovery progress went back to zero and I suffered from the symptoms for a long time. I also had to recover from the injuries to my face, arm, and hand.

By March I was feeling somewhat better although I would still feel very lightheaded and develop a headache when doing exercise or moving around a lot. In early March I went skiing and was quite careful although I had not thought about the impact of repetitive head injuries within the span of a few months. While skiing, I crashed into a snowbank and the impact on my head perturbed my existing concussion symptoms. Since this was the final semester of my undergraduate degree, this led to a lot of stress as I was unable to focus and do work as efficiently as I usually do due to my concussion symptoms. I found myself feeling less and less worthy of being in university amongst all of my peers who appeared to have been doing much better than me. I let myself fall into negative thoughts like this and blamed myself for the concussion symptoms that made it so difficult for me to focus and get work done. This led to a decline in my mental health over time. Later in the semester, I requested IN grades for WRIT 125 and IDIS 373 as these courses were not mandatory for my degree, so I was hoping to be able to finish them in the summer after graduation. I also was behind in CRSS 854, a mandatory course for my degree (graduate course as I was planning to do the combined BSc/MSc). My professor was very understanding of my situation and allowed me to complete the coursework throughout May and the beginning of June, and he was able to get my final mark submitted in time for graduation. During May and June I was also working two jobs; at a pharmacy and as a substitute teacher at a high school in order to support myself financially. Therefore, I had limited free time and was not often capable of focusing long enough to be productive, as my busy work schedule made my headaches worse. Therefore, throughout May and June I had two jobs and was working towards finishing 3 incomplete courses. This level of stress around the time of my graduation at the end of June made my condition worse. Because of the delay in completing my final required course (BMED 854), I was not looking forward to my graduation, as I felt like a fraud and as though I did not deserve a degree as much as my peers who were capable of staying on top of their responsibilities and getting everything done in time. I really beat myself up over this for the entire summer, to the point where I felt suicidal. Looking back on this, it is extremely unfortunate how these events impacted my life to the point where I did not even feel deserving of attending my own convocation. I was in a very dark place mentally for the rest of the summer, there were days where I felt immobilized by my emotions and stresses to the point where I could not be a functioning part of society. Because of these intense feelings soon after my convocation in June I reached out to my family doctor to seek mental health support. I filled out forms regarding my mental state and then after a few weeks (in July) I had a consultation with a mental health specialist to see what kind of treatment/therapy I should look into. They then said they would follow up with more information regarding therapy, but unfortunately after a few weeks I had not heard back. I called the office again in August and this is when I spoke to a Nurse Practitioner (because my family doctor was on vacation) and she reviewed all of my information and asked me many questions before diagnosing me with depression and prescribing medication (Aug 25). This is when I began taking antidepressant medication and hoped to finally improve my life. I also reached out to Student Wellness Services and begun seeing a counsellor, as I was no longer going to be in my hometown as school was starting soon, so I decided to find support at Queen??s. Every day of the summer up until this point I tried to get my assignments done for my IN courses but I was physically incapable of focusing or concentrating on work for more than a short period of time due to both my concussion symptoms as well as my depression and anxiety, which is also known to diminish ones ability to focus and remember things. Throughout summer I was hoping that I would feel better as time went on and therefore still aimed to finish the courses by the end of August, which is why I was unable to appeal within 21 days of my graduation.

I have been on medication since August 25th and have been regularly seeing a counsellor since August as well. I have been feeling better with my academics in my new Master??s program, although the only thing causing me lingering stress and anxiety is the state of these IN courses. I have been feeling extreme anxiety recently as though I am having an identity crisis thinking about what I would do with my life if these courses remained as Fs on my transcript, as the only plans I have for my future involve further education in professional school, either pharmacy, medicine, or law. I have a keen interest in all 3 of these fields, but I am worried now that I will have to forget all about these goals of mine because of the impact that my concussion and my depression have had on my transcript. I would like to reassure you that I am working as hard as I can to better myself, take care of my mental health, as well as my concussion symptoms. I will be getting trigger point injections in my neck to treat the headaches I get from the concussion, and I am continuing to take my medication and seek counselling. Finally, I have already spoken to the IDIS 373 professor, and we had agreed that I will complete the coursework by the end of fall reading week if this appeal gets accepted. I have already gotten much more of the work for this course completed since this semester started.
I hope that the impact that this dark part of my life has had will not result in a permanent influence on the course of my entire future. Thank you for reading my letter and thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Leila Tibouti