Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I have been suffering from severe Generalized Anxiety for 5 1/2 years. I have taken every measure to improve my condition throughout this time by seeing counsellors at Queen¿¿s Student Wellness Services, taking my prescribed medication from my psychiatrist, and practicing self-care habits including meditation, exercise, socializing, and engaging in my hobbies. Overall, there has been a very clear improvement of my condition in many ways. I am now able to attend almost all of my classes, have significantly fewer panic episodes, and can even stay at school for much longer periods of time without needing to go home. However, one aspect of my illness that has unfortunately gotten substantially worse this year is my test anxiety.

The severity of this was unexpected, as it only became apparent during my first test of the year for CISC-371. It really came as a surprise because I have been in Professor Ellis¿¿ classes twice before and my strong math background set me up very well for the course. I had even spent time helping my peers preparing for the test, so I was very confident going into it. Partway through the test, however, I became extremely panicked and had one of the worst episodes I¿¿d had in a long time. Erin Gunsinger and Karen Knight at the School of Computing were there and witnessed the episode and informed Professor Ellis of the situation. They did everything they could to help me calm down, but nothing was helping. I was too frantic, became physically ill, and was incapable of finishing the test. It wasn¿¿t specific to the course because I was also unable to write tests in my other classes. Even attempting to do the smallest portion of a quiz in CISC-326 triggered a severe episode.

Since this is my final year, I was concerned about how this could impact my ability to graduate this Spring. It was extremely disheartening and discouraging to feel as though I may potentially not be able to complete my degree that I had worked so hard to obtain because one part of my illness had gotten worse in the last year. What made it worse was that these severe episodes would be so debilitating that I wouldn¿¿t be able to do anything else, including the assignments that I was able to work on prior to the event. I didn¿¿t want my inability to be tested to keep me from being able to complete all the other parts of my courses. Erin and Karen understood my issue and suggested that meet with my Accessibilities Advisor Meg Hall to see what could be added to my accommodations to help me. She informed me that she couldn¿¿t specifically put ¿¿No tests¿ on my letter of accommodations because modifications to each course would be dependent on the individual instructor. So, she advised me to speak to each of my professors. After speaking to each of them privately, they have all been really understanding and have made the effort to find alternative ways for me to demonstrate my meeting of the learning outcomes. They could see that I was very competent of the course material and excelling in their courses, but I simply could not write any tests. With these adjustments, even if it took longer or more work, I managed to excel even more and show my knowledge of the course materials to my professors¿¿ satisfaction.

I only had two courses (CISC-371 and CISC-422) that had final exams. Thankfully, it is expected that none of my courses next semester will have any exams. Due to the amount of content covered in exams, they did not know how they could come up with an alternative at that time. I had also been in conversation with the Undergraduate Chair David Lamb, who was also very sympathetic of my situation and helped me understand my options. Since there was no way that I could write the exams, but I covered at least 60 of both of my courses, it was recommended that I applied for the Aegrotat Standing for these two courses. I also believe this is the best option, as it would keep me from being in an unhealthy situation with exams, and my final grades would still be an accurate reflection of my demonstrated abilities in my courses.

I have worked incredibly hard to be where I am today at Queen¿¿s and, with the incredible help of the Queen¿¿s staff, I haven¿¿t given up, even when it seemed impossible for me to continue. This is just another obstacle that is hindering my performance at this time, and I simply ask for the assistance I need to get through this rough patch so that I can continue to move forward, heal, and work towards my future goals. I really hope you will understand my circumstances.