Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

My name is Hongbo Cheng, and I am an international student. This is not my first time writing this appeal. I will discuss some issues which acutely influence my student this year, my plan to solve these issues and future plan.

First of all, the main issue that I confronted during this semester was that my family were facing bankrupt because of the pandemic. This really stressed my out as well. I often felt insecure and worried. I could not help myself stopping thinking about these issues during my study and I needed to help parents to decrease their pressure. Another factor that causes me to have insufficient credit this term is that I did not choose the class that suit for me. Before entered the university, I took psychology during high school and I was good at psychology. However, learning psychology in university is completely different. I find out that I am not good at remembering huge amount of information in a short time. Also, the readings in psychology made me feels bored and it is extremely hard for myself to learn this course. I tried to trop this course during fall term. I thought I did not do that correctly, so I failed to trop this course and enrolled another half year course to fulfill the request. Although I tried my best to learn and I putted a lot of effort into it, I still failed this class. The main factor that I got a low mark for my math class is that I do not have enough questions to practice and the way of marking in winter term was different compared with the fall term. The main difference is that the main way to get marks in the fall term is through exams, but the main method to gain marks in winter term is homework. The exams were using the same types of questions in the homework and I could get a full answer from the professor and TA. If I had any questions about the homework, I could ask them. This really helped me to prepare for my exams. However, I cannot do that anymore for the winter term. Because homework weighs 70 of our grade, TA and professor could not give me the full answer to the questions before the submitting deadline. I did not have enough questions for me to practice and I got really confused. Also, I need to improve my ability of solving stress. When I am facing a lot of stress, I lost motivation to do things. I think talk to a psychologist and asking for advice will help me solve this issue. Also, I am planning to come back to Kingston this fall term if the appeal has been accepted, I will book an appointment with Queen's psychologist for advising. My chosen courses GPA for this year is 1.7 which is about the requirement. However, my accumulating GPA is 1.08 because of the failed courses. If I drop all the failing courses that I had taken in year 1 (I see this year as a second year), my GPA will be 1.7. I am doing good for this year compared with 2 years ago.

I still make a tremendous improvement his semester. Compare to my previous performance, I make a huge improvement this year. I failed all my courses 2 years ago because of social anxiety. I tried to gain more confidence and attempt to test myself, so I did not choose too many courses this semester. I am good at philosophy. I really enjoy learning this course. I am successful in philosophy. Thus, I change my strategy. I want to learn philosophy in the future. I have already chosen philosophy as my major. In order to test myself, I also enrolled in 2 upper year philosophy classes during summer term. I am still good at it and I really enjoy study it.

I do believe that I can be successful in philosophy, and I have ability to accomplish the requirement. I have noticed the challenges and means to solve them.

Sincerely,
Hongbo