Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Johanne Benard,
I am appealing to drop POLS 242, POLS 262 and ECON 212 from my transcript.
Last year was a particularly difficult year for me, both academically and personally. In first semester I struggled to keep up in two courses required for me to pursue a degree in economics. Ultimately I failed the two courses (ECON 212 and ECON 255) that caused me to reconsider my goal of ultimately majoring in the subject. By the end of the semester I had realized that I needed to either get support that would help me achieve the grades I wanted in Economics or transfer out of the faculty altogether. I decided that meeting with an academic advisor to help me decide the best course of action to take and help me to configure a new schedule as all of the courses I was set to enroll in were Economics courses. Ultimately, I feel that I left the meetings with the academic advisors more confused than I had entered them; there were conflicting pieces of advice that I had received amongst the advisors themselves and I was redirected to contact various other people to answer the questions I had come into the meetings with. I enrolled in 5 of my 6 courses for the semester two weeks behind. On top of this, I had medical issues for approximately three weeks during the semester that made it difficult for me to complete my assignments and put me further behind my classmates as I missed additional class time. LAW 201 was the only class I had taken that semester that I performed well in; I believe that this is because I was able to watch the lectures online and keep pace that way while I was in the GTA receiving treatment. Furthermore, last year was a very trying time for me personally. There was extreme conflict with the group of girls that I was living with (my only friends at Queen¿¿s) that caused a great amount of tension and stress in the house. On top of this, there was a lot of tension between myself and my long term boyfriend who had gone on exchange for the semester. Overall these factors all contributed to an extremely stressful second term which I feel made it difficult for me to do well in my courses.
I became ill during reading week and stayed home an additional week to receive treatment and again the week of my first exam. My illnesses resulted in me missing the ECON 212 midterm and final exam as well as the submission dates for my term papers in POLS 242 and POLS 262. In addition, the combination of enrolling late into my courses and becoming medically ill for three weeks of the semester as well as facing my own personal issues made it extremely difficult to keep up to my peers; and as a result could not successfully complete assignments because I was so far behind and unable to catch up to where the class was.
c. My goal is to change programs from a medial in Economics and Politics to a major in Politics and a minor in Economics. I want to retake ECON 212 and POLS 242 in the following school year and retake POLS 262 in the winter semester. I feel that with the exception of this semester, my grades in Politics were much higher and it was much easier for me to understand and grasp the course material as opposed to Economics because of its math heavy nature.
In the future I would like to use the mental health resources at Queen¿¿s at least once a month and more during stressful periods. I feel that talking to someone helped me to feel calmer and provided me with solutions to help me feel less overwhelmed. By meeting with a professional, I believe that it will help me be less overwhelmed during stressful time periods and also help me in creating and maintaining a healthy life balance. I also want to attend learning strategies at Stauffer library; I feel that through attending these seminars I can develop a more organized system and feel less overwhelmed and stressed by my coursework. Overall,