Manage Appeals
Petition Type: New
ID: 2596
Submitted: August 30, 2016 at 10:47:34 PM
First Name: Danica
Last Name: Goodchild
Student Number: 10136256
Email: 13dg32@queensu.ca
Degree Program: BSH
Plan: PSYC
Level of Study: 3
Petition Categories
Petition Categories: Request credit (CR) standing in a course or courses
Code: PHGY 214
Term: Fall/Winter
Year: 2015
Petition Category: Request credit (CR) standing in a course or courses
Instructor's Name: Dr. Dean Van Vugt
Petition Letter
Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean of Studies,
I am writing this letter to appeal the mark I received in PHGY 214 (Fall/Winter 2015-16). I would appreciate having this course show up on my transcript as credit standing (CR).
During the 2015-2016 academic year I constantly struggled with and was affected by anxiety. This had a significant impact on my academic performance, especially affecting my exams in PHGY 214.
In March 2016 while I was writing the midterm exam for PHGY 214 I had a panic attack. Despite my thorough preparation for the exam, once I sat down to write it my anxiety got the better of me and led to uncontrollable crying and hyperventilating. Not only were these conditions physically hard to deal with, but since I was surrounded by people in a lecture hall, this further increased my anxiety because I thought everyone around me was judging me for crying in an exam. This had a very significant effect on my mental state and greatly impacted my performance on this midterm. Over half of the mark on the midterm was a written section, but since my mind was so worked up it had basically shut down from thinking mode as though it just wanted to exit this stressful situation. This led me to not being able to focus on the appropriate tasks and I was not able to write down anything intelligible for this section of the exam.
After this midterm I contacted the professor and he agreed that my performance on the midterm was not an accurate representation of my knowledge of the course content. He offered to reweight my final exam since it was also covering the same course content that was included on the midterm. Due to the marking scheme of PHGY 214 having only two midterms and two final exams to make up the entire course mark, I was now left with a final exam covering the whole winter semester worth 50 of a 6.0 unit course. Due to this exam now being extremely critical to my overall grade in the course, this put a lot of extra pressure on me to do well. On top of this elevated pressure to do well, it was also the first time in my life that I had to write two final exams in one day, with one in the afternoon and PHGY 214 in the evening just two hours later, which made the studying and preparation leading up to this day extra stressful on me as well.
After finishing my first exam at 5pm I had a panic attack and totally lost control of myself in between the two exams because I was very nervous for the second one and did not have the time I normally would before an exam to go back over my notes to refresh my brain. I already find exam writing incredibly stressful and draining, and with the thought of the anxiety attack in the midterm still fresh in my mind, I could barely handle my emotions going into the PHGY 214 final exam. This combination of stressful situations and feelings made sitting in the big exam gym very difficult and made it again very hard to focus myself to perform at the best of my abilities. All of these situations combined had a negative impact my performance in PHGY 214.
Moving forward, I have been and will continue to make changes to avoid a situation like this in my academic studies. For over a year now I have been getting cognitive behavioural therapy from a psychologist on a regular basis. I plan on continuing to do this until my mental health becomes more stable. I have also been followed closely by my doctor as we try to find the right medication and dose that will allow me to function as normally as possible in everyday life and my academic studies. Also, for the 2016-17 school year I am working with my doctor and Queen¿¿s Student Accessibility Services to get proper accommodations for writing exams and midterms in smaller rooms and to avoid having multiple exams on the same day.
In order for me to be as successful as I would like to be in the courses that I am taking I have decided to take a lighter course load of only 4 courses each semester to see if this reduces the amount of pressure and stress that I am putting myself under and to allow myself the best opportunity to be successful in the courses that I am taking. On top of this I have also switched my program of study from a Bio-Psychology Specialization program to a Psychology Major program which eliminates the biology-related courses which I have found to be a lot more stressful on me.
Sincerely,
Danica Goodchild
10136256
I am writing this letter to appeal the mark I received in PHGY 214 (Fall/Winter 2015-16). I would appreciate having this course show up on my transcript as credit standing (CR).
During the 2015-2016 academic year I constantly struggled with and was affected by anxiety. This had a significant impact on my academic performance, especially affecting my exams in PHGY 214.
In March 2016 while I was writing the midterm exam for PHGY 214 I had a panic attack. Despite my thorough preparation for the exam, once I sat down to write it my anxiety got the better of me and led to uncontrollable crying and hyperventilating. Not only were these conditions physically hard to deal with, but since I was surrounded by people in a lecture hall, this further increased my anxiety because I thought everyone around me was judging me for crying in an exam. This had a very significant effect on my mental state and greatly impacted my performance on this midterm. Over half of the mark on the midterm was a written section, but since my mind was so worked up it had basically shut down from thinking mode as though it just wanted to exit this stressful situation. This led me to not being able to focus on the appropriate tasks and I was not able to write down anything intelligible for this section of the exam.
After this midterm I contacted the professor and he agreed that my performance on the midterm was not an accurate representation of my knowledge of the course content. He offered to reweight my final exam since it was also covering the same course content that was included on the midterm. Due to the marking scheme of PHGY 214 having only two midterms and two final exams to make up the entire course mark, I was now left with a final exam covering the whole winter semester worth 50 of a 6.0 unit course. Due to this exam now being extremely critical to my overall grade in the course, this put a lot of extra pressure on me to do well. On top of this elevated pressure to do well, it was also the first time in my life that I had to write two final exams in one day, with one in the afternoon and PHGY 214 in the evening just two hours later, which made the studying and preparation leading up to this day extra stressful on me as well.
After finishing my first exam at 5pm I had a panic attack and totally lost control of myself in between the two exams because I was very nervous for the second one and did not have the time I normally would before an exam to go back over my notes to refresh my brain. I already find exam writing incredibly stressful and draining, and with the thought of the anxiety attack in the midterm still fresh in my mind, I could barely handle my emotions going into the PHGY 214 final exam. This combination of stressful situations and feelings made sitting in the big exam gym very difficult and made it again very hard to focus myself to perform at the best of my abilities. All of these situations combined had a negative impact my performance in PHGY 214.
Moving forward, I have been and will continue to make changes to avoid a situation like this in my academic studies. For over a year now I have been getting cognitive behavioural therapy from a psychologist on a regular basis. I plan on continuing to do this until my mental health becomes more stable. I have also been followed closely by my doctor as we try to find the right medication and dose that will allow me to function as normally as possible in everyday life and my academic studies. Also, for the 2016-17 school year I am working with my doctor and Queen¿¿s Student Accessibility Services to get proper accommodations for writing exams and midterms in smaller rooms and to avoid having multiple exams on the same day.
In order for me to be as successful as I would like to be in the courses that I am taking I have decided to take a lighter course load of only 4 courses each semester to see if this reduces the amount of pressure and stress that I am putting myself under and to allow myself the best opportunity to be successful in the courses that I am taking. On top of this I have also switched my program of study from a Bio-Psychology Specialization program to a Psychology Major program which eliminates the biology-related courses which I have found to be a lot more stressful on me.
Sincerely,
Danica Goodchild
10136256
Documentation
Professional Letter: Danica Goodchild Supporting Documentation-0.jpg
Professional Letter Detail: Letter from doctor