Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing this letter to appeal the 21 day deadline for my 2014-2015 fall term.

I am currently facing a one year dismissal after being placed on academic probation from last year.

On November 16th 2014, I was hit by a taxi in front of Watts Hall, my body was thrown 3 to 4 meters away from the car. My arm and elbow was bleeding and my lower back and side of my left body was injured. Some students by the sidewalk called the police and helped me up to the first aid. I felt lucky I got help from other students and I was still in one whole piece. After answering some questions asked by the police, I thought it was only some bleeding/bruises so I told the taxi driver I was okay. But after going back to residence, I felt unbearable pain in my lower back, I could not sit or lie down and my body kept shaking. I visited the hospital later that night. The pain in my lower back was continuous after the accident, even now it keeps bothering me, especially when it rains or when the weather becomes humid.

Because of the car accident, I often feel difficulty in breathing and out of breath. Sometimes my heart suddenly starts to beat 200-300 beats per minute continuously for around 30 minutes or more for no reason. With time passing, this problem has been better now.

At the same time my mother's marriage with my step father has not been going well. My step-father is not taking responsibly for any of my and my younger sister's financial needs, and he has stopped daily food and household basic expenditures. The situation has been very stressful for us.

I have a history for severe dysmenorrhea, I experience much more pain compared to others when I have my period. I feel sharp menstrual cramps, dizziness and headaches associated with a fever during that period. Dysmenorrhea has interfered with my normal learning activity a lot.

I was very distracted with the situation back home and with my health condition I was unable to focus on my studies. My grades have suffered as a result.

I did not send in an appeal during the fall term because I was very busy working on to catch up my grades. I have spent a large amount of time in the lab for my programming class sometimes until 4 to 5 am in the morning. I wanted to do better during my winter term, so I kept taking classes wanting to bring my grades up. However the results were not in my favor due to above mentioned reasons in this letter. I was also working part time at the Queen's Cancer Department starting my winter term for 3 times a week, and it had taken up a lot of my time.

This April I have talked to two academic advisors on how to do the appeal process and their information has been a great help to me.

I love Queen's University and the welcoming community. In the end it is my own fault for the results of my poor academic performance. I was embarrassed and did not reach out for help or ask the professor more questions when I needed help. I have realized my bad learning methods. I learned my mistake and it would mean so much to me to give me another chance to come back next term.

If this appeal is granted I hope that my cisc-220 mark would be dropped, and for my cisc-223 and cisc-204 marks to be credit standing. I hope my withdrawal would be waived (or reconsidered after looking at my summer term marks).

I plan to get back on track next year by re-doing some courses taken in my second year. I believe I will do much better when taking these courses the second time. I will have a set daily plan for the time I spend on each course, and I will also actively seek out for help when I find the material confusing. I am currently in general sciences mathematics, but I want to get back into honours computing - software design. My goal is to raise my GPA up to 1.9. This can be achieved with a grade of B- over the next 39 units including the courses I plan to repeat.

Below are the courses I plan to take next year if my appeal is granted:

First semester: cisc-124, cisc-220, cogs100, cisc-204, math-111 (A)
Second semester: cisc-221, cisc-235, cisc-260, musc-102, math-111 (B)


Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Emily Bao