Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,
I am writing this appeal in hopes of removing GRMN 101- Beginner¿¿s German from my academic record, as I received a failing grade in this course. I took this course in the fall term of my 3rd year at Queen¿¿s with genuine interest in doing well and succeeding in the course. My first issue in the course was upon finding out that a large majority of the class were either German exchange students or already had some level of fluency in the language and were just in the class to earn an easy credit. To myself and other students who had never encountered the language before, we found ourselves frustrated at the pace with which the professor set. My Professor taught the class to the level of understanding with which the average of the class would be able to comprehend. As I mentioned, a large percentage of the class were either fluent or semi-fluent in the language before taking the class. Additionally, much of the course content was focused around online homework, which required one to already have a moderate level of understanding of the language to be able to use. To summarize my experience in the class, it was frustration from the very first day. The reason I did not drop the class during the semester is because I did not expect the level of difficulty in the oral in-person interview with the professor and the final exam to be as intensive as it was. The entire exam was written almost entirely in German, with minor English instruction. I was shocked at the level of competency and fluidity I was expected to have in a foreign language after studying it part time for 4 months.
That is the academic grounds which I stipulate this appeal. This is entirely an unusual academic event. This class is in no way connected to my Political Science Major that I am currently in my 4th year of, nor is the class necessary for me to graduate. It is a stain on my academic record which severely reduces my GPA. As I have future aspirations of attending Grad school to pursue my Master¿¿s Degree, hopefully at Queen¿¿s or RMC, it would be highly beneficial for my future academic career to have this failure removed from my academic record so that I can get into the best Grad school institution I possibly can. This course does not represent my overall academic career. My academic performance in my most recent semester in the fall was quite outstanding, receiving an A and A- in both my 4th year classes. I am a hard working and dedicated student. I took a German language class because I was genuinely interested in learning the language. The professor taught the class very hastily and did not take time to help students who had fallen behind, and the large number of exchange students and fluent German speakers in the class gave the professor a skewed interpretation of the aggregate understanding of the class. I did not drop it because the intensity and workload of the course up to the time allowed to drop the course was manageable, but the final 2 assessments, being the in-person interview and final exam, which constituted a majority percentage of the grades in the course, were at a level of difficulty I was totally unprepared for despite studying the course content extensively in preparation. For an introduction course it was taught at an unreasonable level. This failure brings down my GPA and looks terrible on my academic record. I would greatly appreciate having it removed from my academic record despite the time it has been since I took the course.
Thank you for your consideration
Landen Kruger
Student 10090468
E-mail: 12lrk3@queensu.ca