Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

I am writing this letter to request dropping two internship courses (INTN 301 and INTN 302) because of extenuating circumstances faced during my internship. To pass each course, I was required to complete a QUIP 4-month and 8-month performance evaluation which I was unable to do because my supervisor had fallen ill and I could not find myself an alternate supervisor or mentor.

I have been on internship for almost 11 months now, working primarily as a Field Technician with Stantec Consulting in Toronto, ON. It has been challenging ?? some weeks have been far busier than others, and since it is mainly field work, I rarely have the chance to see my coworkers at the office. During the summer of 2022, I was able to regularly check in with my supervisor once a month regarding my progress and any opportunities for developing my skills. However, in the beginning of September 2022 my supervisor at work had a medical emergency and was on sick leave until the beginning of January 2023. I had scheduled to meet with him the day he had an emergency to complete my evaluation form for QUIP. The months following this event, I had contacted some of the Project Managers I had worked with and another Team Lead to request filling out the forms with me. I managed to have a Team Lead agree to complete this task, but after several follow-ups, he never did complete this.

Although I have gained some invaluable experiences from this firm, it has been extremely difficult advocating for myself. After spending almost 5 months without a supervisor, it was getting progressively harder to find any work opportunities; the internship no longer met the requirements of QUIP which was to be a full-time, 37 hour a week position. Some weeks I will be reaching 40 hours, and others (such as the one I am currently writing this letter in), I don??t have a single shift scheduled to work for the week. Each week, I send every Project Manager I have worked with an email and Teams message noting my availability and requesting for any office or field work. I believe I am a very enthusiastic worker and take initiative to find myself work.

Not only has this taken a toll on the beginning of my career, but also financially and emotionally. I moved to Toronto specifically to begin my internship and am actively paying rent to live here. Since my hours have been fluctuating, I don??t have a consistent income and it gets increasingly more stressful not knowing if I have enough to pay the rent for my apartment and other living expenses, such as food and medical bills.

In December 2022, I decided to drop out of the internship program because I knew I could not complete the evaluations to pass the course and my work was no longer meeting the hourly requirements QUIP. I also wanted to continue taking courses to complete my undergraduate degree by the end of summer, since QUIP was not allowing me to take any courses due to needing at least a semester of courses after internship. I felt I wanted to complete my degree as soon as possible because the longer it takes, the more money I will have to spend on tuition.

I would like these courses to be dropped because I believe I have worked much harder these past two years in my academics to pursue a Master??s degree in the near future. Having these Failed and Incomplete courses on my transcript has brought my GPA down, and I don??t believe my marks should suffer for not being able to find a mentor during my internship despite my many efforts to do so.

I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to consider my appeal, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

Emma Wensley