Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hi,

My name is Alexander Ghai. I am a third year student in the bachelor of art in Economics.
I am writing to request for a credit standing (CR) in the following courses. ECON 212 CISC 121 and ECON 351. In addition, I would like to drop Econ 255, offered in the fall of 2020.

I had a rather difficult start when I first arrived at queen¿¿s university. I lost my father few months into my classes, followed by a close friend later on at KGH and those events negatively impacted my mental health and motivation to study. My grades suffered as a result, fortunately the university gave me the chance and the support I need and I was able to get my studies back on track. I raised my GPA from 1.6 to a 2.06 at the end of the 2020 winter term, but all changed last term.

last year was a difficulty year for me. I experienced a lot of anxiety that made it really difficult for me to concentrate in one sitting. It was worst when I worked on quizzes . I would panic and never finish on time. The lack of study skills needed for the full online classes on top of the anxiety I was fighting eventually marred the progress I was making towards raising my GPA.

In addition to that, I had no support I could count on during the pandemic. My family live in Africa and the kind of support I was getting from campus the year before was not there anymore due to the pandemic. I have discovered since then that the students support was opened during the term and I could have reached out. I tend to use it a lot this term.

Moreover, I had some technical issues with my wifi. I live with five housemates and as a result the wifi was too slow. It was only good at certain hours when most people were off , unfortunately most of the tests and quizzes fell on the busy times . The quizzes and final for ECON 255 were affected , ECON 212 was also affected and I was not able to finish the final and midterm for ECON 351 and CISC 121 due to wifi issues also.

I could not afford installing a new wifi last term due the financial difficulties I was going through, so I kept on using the shared wifi. I missed one mid term and submitted some quizzes and finals passed the due dates that caused me some marks because of how slow I was loading different pages to answer them. It contributed a lot to some of the low grades I got.
I have installed a new wifi now for this term.


I want to start afresh this year by putting the problems I had in the fall 2020 term behind me. I am well prepared now for the online classes and the skills needed, especially on how to interact and work with fellow students. I have a new wifi now , so I believe that will eliminate the technical issues I had last term. I am also going to reach out to students wellness for counselling services to manage my anxiety.

Currently, my GPA is really low due to the results I got in the fall. This does not reflect my potential in those classes. I can do better than what the current grades suggest and I have demonstrated this by how much I raised my GPA after some awful events . This is my final year and I would be very grateful if you can consider my appeal and give me the chance to redeem myself this term thank you.


Yours sincerely

Ghai Alexander.