Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Studies),

I am writing this Appeal Letter to request permission to drop ECON 112 (Fall 2014) past the deadline. In June 2014, I began a six-month full-time internship at the Embassy of Canada in Beijing, China. Since the beginning of the fall semester, I have attempted to take ECON 112 concurrently with my internship here in Beijing; it is the only course I am enrolled in this semester.

When I began the course, I expected that I would be able to successfully complete all the coursework. As the semester progressed, I regrettably found that it became increasingly difficult for me to do so.

I underestimated how challenging it would be to excel in ECON 112 while living and working in Beijing. Though I have lived in China once before, it was in a different city on a program with numerous other Queen¿¿s students. This time, I came to a new city alone, I live here alone, and I have had to adapt to a new life in Beijing with little support from my employer and without my friends and family. Indeed, I found this environment much more difficult to live in.

This is also the first time in which I have attempted to take an online course that requires extensive readings from a textbook. When the course began I was already living in China and was unable to purchase a physical copy of the textbook. I instead used an online version of the text, which I found to be much more challenging than I expected.

In each of my years at Queen¿¿s I have brought increased motivation, diligence, and passion to my studies. Notably, this is the first time I have ever appealed to drop a course. I am doing so now (instead of earlier in the semester) because until recently, I remained optimistic that I would be able to turn things around. I set aside more time to prepare for the most recent quiz, but was still met with an unsatisfactory result.

When I enrolled in the course I expected to have enough time to spend on it. However, I work full-time five days a week, and maintain a part-time job for 5 hours on weekends. After work and dinner, I am finally able to begin coursework, around 8:00PM. Though I did anticipate a full schedule, I certainly did not expect full days at my internship to be as exhausting as they have been, nor could I have predicted how difficult it would be for me to study effectively for ECON 112 after a 8-9 hour day at work.

Now I accept that I may not be able to pass ECON 112, and that attempting to do so while working full-time in a foreign country was perhaps an unrealistic goal. I did not anticipate the level of culture shock I experienced living here independently, nor did I realize how little time I would have available to work on the course.

I greatly appreciate your serious consideration of my appeal. If you require any additional information, please feel free to contact me and I will gladly provide it for you.

Most sincerely,
David Brenman