Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello there,
I am formally writing this petition as a result of my 44% final grade in Chem 112. I am a biology major, and was forced due to the circumstances I am about to explain below to switch my degree from honours to general (3 year program). Going into this academic year, I had roughly 3 courses left to fulfill my biology degree which were bio credits, and still had first year general chemistry to complete to fulfill the requirements of my degree within 3 years (alongside taking a cumulative of 6 courses per term to obtain 90 units overall). At the start of the fall term, things began to get extremely difficult for my family and external life beyond the borders of Queen's. As war began in Israel, my mother had to go back to help as our entire family lives there, and I was left to take care of my younger brother back in Toronto. My father passed away at the age of 10, and we have no other family in Canada. I was travelling back and fourth from Kingston to Toronto weekly, and it got to a point where I was doing lectures online, and only was able to manage making it back for the weekly labs every Thursday morning. My mother ended up getting stuck there, and there was no flights back to Canada so this led on for quite a while. My grades in the labs were always very good, though due to not being able to be present for many lectures, I felt myself falling downhill in Chem112, and being in 6 courses a term on top of that made it furthermore challenging. I was able to successfully pass all my exams (including bio courses) for the fall term except for chemistry. The beginning half of second term was the same in terms of how often I was in kingston, and I felt even more pressure as I have no financial help with school or housing, and was working full time to be able to afford tuition and school, as well as to take care of my brother at home. I registered in a coursecram for chemistry, did all the assignments and quizzes, and still did not pass the final course by 6%. Beyond chemistry, I have completed everything needed for my degree and am seeking guidance and help as I cannot afford to do another year of school/even a semester for one course as I am financially struggling even more after all the events which have happened this year. I truly worked as hard as I could to finish this final, and my degree change from honours to general was also in an attempt to finish earlier as I could not be able to afford doing 4 years of school. Balancing working full time to simply survive week to week, travelling 3 hours back and fourth every few days, and trying to manage 6 courses per term defeated me, and I am now left hopeless to finishing my academic career here at Queen's. I hope this letter finds you well, and my complex and challenging situation is understood.