Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To Whom it may concern:

My name is Sydney Wong (10103195) and I just finished my third year at Queen's with a RELS major. I have appealed dropping courses in the past due to mental health issues and although my mental health is still relevant to this situation, I believe that the circumstances are different.

Since being at Queen's I have had great luck in having understanding Professors and have been able to continue my studies even though I had to drop some courses. Last year, I had to drop my full Winter course load resulting in being put on OSAP probation. After this occurred, I took full charge of making sure this incident would not occur again. I adjusted my medication as necessary and began to really focus on school to improve my grades and mental health. I believe this is reflected in my Fall Term marks as I did much better than I had in the past and did not have to appeal anything.

The beginning of the Winter 2017 semester got off to a good start as I now had improved my marks vastly and was working a part-time job along with taking self-care very seriously as to not fall behind in my studies again. However at the end of the Winter term, my laptop unexpectedly broke down the Sunday night before I had a Take-Home exam due along with an in-class response for the RELS 226 class I was enrolled in. By the time my laptop had broke it was about 9pm so I tried to stay up and rewrite as much as I could on a laptop I borrowed from a friend. Unfortunately, I fell asleep on accident and missed handing in the take-home along with the in-class response. I emailed the TA as soon as I woke up and she forwarded me to the Professor. I knew I would lose marks as it was not a circumstance completely out of my control, however I was hoping that I could possibly still hand in a take-home as the syllabus indicated that there would be late marks, but did not state how many a day or what the final hard deadline was.


The response I received from the Professor was extremely upsetting. This was not because of the solutions she offered me but rather the tone of her response, accusing me of not taking my studies seriously. This made me feel extremely intimidated by the Professor and I felt as though I could possibly be marked poorly due to her perception of me, although this was the only time I had ever spoken to her. I feel as though I do take my schooling very seriously and my marks from my other courses reflect that I have been trying very hard to do better than I had in the past. Again, this made me feel extremely intimidated and as if I would do poorly in the class since she believed I did not take it seriously. After reading this email, I had to take the time to take additional medication so I could properly function as I still had 3 other essays and assignments to hand in for my other classes. Because of this, I decided that attempting to deal with the situation at the time would cause me to relapse and that focusing on my other courses and self-care was the best option. The following days I was still shaken up due to the email and at first was not going to appeal. However after speaking to another Professor, they advised that I should attempt to appeal if I feel uncomfortable speaking to the other Professor as each case is looked at individually.

Therefore I am appealing to drop this course as I do not want a failing grade on my transcript.I believe I have been improving my grades a lot and feel like I would have done well in the class had this communication not occurred. I know this was a choice I made to not further communicate with the RELS 226 Professor, however as I mentioned before, thinking about the situation brought me great anxiety and stress which caused me to have to increase my medication for a period of time to properly function.In the end I had to prioritize my other courses as to not jeopardize those marks as well.

Thank you for taking the time to read my appeal, it is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Sydney Wong