Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (studies),

I am appealing to:

Late drop:
BCHM 310 (Fall, 2018 ¿¿ Winter, 2019)

Apply for credit standing:
PHARM 340 (Fall, 2018)
MICR 451 (Winter, 2019).

Late appeal (waive 21 day deadline) :
--Apply for credit standing
PHARM 340 (Fall, 2018)
ANAT 215 (Fall, 2016)
CHEM 281 (Fall, 2016)
PHGY 214 (Fall 2016 ¿¿ Winter 2017)
--Late drop
STAT 263 (Fall, 2016)

From Fall 2018 to Winter 2019 (and still ongoing), I've been suffering from mental illness that has considerably affected my performance on PHAR 340, BCHM 310 and MICR 451. I took PHARM 340 in the Fall Semester when my mental health stared declining and MICR 451 during the Winter 2019 semester when I was actively utilising the services provided by Student Wellness Services to try and manage my condition. The BCHM 310 course was a full year course that I managed to pass the Fall portion with a few missing assignments, but I failed the Winter portion of the course having missed almost all of course assessments and having to write a deferred prorated exam.
Note I only did well on one course, NSCI 499, a research thesis course that had no lecture material to memorize (no written exams or midterms). NSCI 499 also had long periods of time to complete assessments coupled with repetitive lab work. Additionally, my thesis supervisor, Dr. R. David Andrew, gave me freedom to pick out my own weekly schedule for carrying out my experiments and was only concerned about course deadlines and lab rules being adhered to.
My mental health made going to lectures difficult. This was mainly because I was always feeling fatigue, I had begun to experience irregular sleeping patterns and social anxiety combined with added anxiousness that others may notice my almost paralyzing anxiety tremors. This mostly affected my PHAR 340 and BCHM 310 lecture attendance in the Fall given that It was only after beginning treatment sometime around Dec 2018- Jan 2019 with escitalopram, that I began feeling less fatigue and my anxiety tremors began to slowly dissipate. However, the irregular sleeping patterns did not improve significantly, and my sleep quality began to get worse too. This ended up affecting my attendance in BCHM 310 and MICR 451 in the winter 2019 semester. My memory, ability to concentrate and think clearly also began to decline as of Fall 2018, and despite treatment with escitalopram, recovery seemed snail-paced and insignificant.
Towards the end of the Winter 2019 semester, these symptoms had me in a situation where I was incapable of properly preparing for and making judgements about my ability to write an exam and hence I ended up constantly postponing my deferred MICR 451 midterm and exam; and writing the deferred BCHM 310 exam given that I was unable to make the judgement to not write the exam since Professor Glenville Jones seemed highly unwilling to organize for a later deferred exam for students who would not be able to write the May 8th make up exam. Additionally, seemingly small things like eating, sending/replying to emails, attending appointments and even getting around to making this appeal, did and continue to seem like daunting tasks. On the other hand, mentally strenuous tasks such as studying for an exam seemed almost undoable. Hence it was an immense struggle to study for the MICR451 exam over the summer and I may have even taken a year off If it were not for the immense pressure from my parents back in Kenya for me to graduate immediately due to financial reasons. My parents cover my tuition and my cost of living; hence I had no other choice but to write the MICR 451 exam prematurely in August so that I could graduate in November. Hence given the circumstances and grades achieved, I would kindly like to have the BCHM 310 course dropped (Grade: Fail) and PHARM 340 (Grade: C) and MICR 451 (Grade: C-) course grade to be changed to a credit standing.

I appeal for a late appeal request for the MICR 451 course based on the extenuating circumstances described above.

I would additionally like to make an appeal to be allowed to make a late appeal to late drop STAT 263 (Fall, 2016) and for credit standing in ANAT 215 (Fall, 2016), CHEM 281 (Fall, 2016) and PHGY 214 (Fall 2016 ¿¿ Winter 2017). The main circumstance that made me not do as well as expected in these courses is that I had contracted Malaria during summer 2016 and even after treatment, I still had chronic back pains, liver and kidney dysfunction and my body was easily susceptible to other ailments which had me falling ill almost during the whole entirety of the fall semester. This made it difficult to attend class or study/work on assignments for long periods. Unfortunately, the reason as to why I am appealing for late appeals is due to three reasons. Firstly, having missed all forms of orientation due to late arrival into Canada in September 2015 from Kenya, I have been underinformed about the resources available to me at Queens and different policies and I have only learned what I missed out through my academic experience over the years as I went from focusing on settling down in Canada to more academic endeavours. With even MICR 451 and BCHM 310, I would have applied for Aegrotat standing but I only came to learn about the appeal system after agreeing to write a deferred MICR 451 exam and failing my BCHM 310 course and having my ability to graduate as a Life Sciences SSP student diminished and causing me to switch back to being a Life Sciences Major student. Evidence of me actively pursuing to learn more about the school can be seen in my extracurricular engagements that had me discover all that queens had to offer. Secondly , I had thought I would have been able to do an additionally academic year to redo these courses, however due to financial strain being experienced by my parents back in Kenya, that is no longer likely and I am now having to seek out starting graduate school either part time or funded with Dr. R. David Andrew in the Faculty of Neuroscience since I can no longer afford another full time undergraduate academic year. My appeal to late drop STAT 263 even after redoing the course in Summer 2017 is because due to future academic pursuits, I am afraid other universities may not consider courses done during the summer. Note, I only did well in PSYC 271 in Fall 2017 given that the lecturer at the time voice recorded all her lectures and attached them with the final lecture slides used during lectures. Thirdly, in the middle of second year (Fall 2016) I ended up moving to a house that had a myriad of problems that kept getting worse. Before I moved out in the summer of 2018, I was mostly preoccupied with dealing with all the worsening problems of the house and sometimes finding temporary accommodations for myself (especially when I had several rats infesting my room). The only reason I could not move out immediately is that I moved into that house because of family friends who helped me find those accommodations, hence my parents back home were reluctant in letting me move out since their thought process was 'if our family friends, who have been in Canada for several years, found you a house and it had problems, then if you were to find a house by yourself, you would probably ended in much worse living conditions'. The thought that I may have not been in Canada long enough to be able to make a wise decision about housing by myself is the reason my parents made me refrain from moving out.