Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,

My name is Marco Caccavella and I recently completed my final year of undergraduate studies at Queen¿¿s University, majoring in Biology (BSc Hons). I would like to make an appeal for EPID 301- Principles of Epidemiology, taken in the winter semester of 2019. This request is to receive Credit standing (CR) in this course, allowing me to receive the credit for it, but not have the grade decrease my GPA and impact my eligibility to be admitted into prospective studies. I am sending this appeal letter later in the summer because I was taking some time off for both my physical and mental health.
My last semester at Queen¿¿s posed some very difficult challenges, as I experienced many hardships, which I believe impacted my grades negatively. The majority of these hardships came later in the semester, during the last 2 weeks and throughout the exam season. Within the last month alone, my dog passed away, my girlfriend¿¿s grandfather passed away unexpectedly, and I had experienced an infection from wisdom teeth removal. The mental and physical stress caused from these events, along with my inability to study for long periods of time due to the discomfort I experience from my diagnosed upper crossed syndrome (and the wisdom teeth removal), made preparation for my final exam very difficult; these events impaired my ability to study effectively for this exam, which negatively affected my grade.
In chronological order, the emergency euthanization of my dog, Chico, occurred on April 1st of 2019. I was very close to my dog, and although he was getting old (13 years and 2 months), this procedure was unexpected as he was experiencing respiratory distress from mitral valve disease, which I did not know he had until the very last minute. This event caused me quite a bit of trauma and fear, as I was alone when the situation had happened and had no emotional support on the day of the situation. I was not able to mourn appropriately, as just a week later (April 7th) my girlfriend¿¿s grandfather had passed away unexpectedly from septic shock caused by E. coli sepsis, two days after he was cancer free. I was already experiencing mild depression in March and April, from the loneliness and stress of being at Queen¿¿s, but these two events made my personal situation much more difficult. I decided to stay home in Vaughan, ON for the remainder of the month until my EPID 301 exam, to be in the company of mine and my girlfriend¿¿s family. I did this to de-stress and have the emotional support.
As the exam approached, I was experiencing migraines and pain from my wisdom teeth, and I decided to have surgery to extract them on April 18th. The pain from my wisdom teeth made studying difficult, and so, I assumed completing the surgery would have comforted me. I still would have had ample time to complete my studying for the exam as I had already begun. Unexpectedly, I received an infection 3-4 days later and had to go in for a follow-up and was prescribed antibiotics. This discomfort further delayed my studying, but I still would have had the 23rd and 24th to complete studying for the exam, so I went through with writing the exam. These events all occurred unexpectedly and very close to the EPID 301 final exam, particularly the oral infection, which caused great inconveniences.
Although unprepared, I decided to write these final exams in order to get them over with, and finally take much needed rest in the company of family and the comfort of my own home. It was crucial that I had the closure of ending my undergraduate degree by completing this exam, as opposed to deferring my exam and potentially further impacting my mental health and my graduation status. Apologies for the inconvenience.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
Marco Caccavella