Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear academic associate dean,

I am writing to appeal a letter of permission to take 3rd and 4th year courses through another university.

My name is Cailing Zhang, a 4th year student who is going to 5th year this September. I am specializing in Computing and Mathematics with professional internship (GPA 3.82). I really appreciate all the opportunities and supports that Queens provides to students in academic and working fields. I joined the international exchange program and QUIP. Everything was going smoothly until the pandemic came 2 years ago and my exchange to UCM canceled 2 months before departure. My original plan was to complete the remaining elective credits of my degree at UCM and transfer them back to Queens. Then I had to make new plans due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, the epidemic situation aggravated in North America at the end of 2020. My family worried about my health and wished that I could go back to be accompanying with them (Reference is attached as a message from mom). I had seen plenty of cases that illness separated families forever and I did not know whether tomorrow or end which comes first. To support each other going through the hardest time, I decided to fly back to China to stay with my family. Because of the 12-hour jet lag, I did not take any courses at Queens. Instead, I completed a 6-month internship during the gap term to prepare me for QUIP (Reference is attached as Offer Letter from Lanyu) Successfully, I received an offer from Ericsson through QUIP and started my Co-Op last September (Reference is attached as Offer Letter from Ericsson). Now, I am at the corner to return to campus for my last year study. However, I am not confident enough to acclimatize myself to school and keep success on courses after almost 2 years out of campus.

I was aware of this concern and took a summer course to start to get adapted. Luckily, I found the online courses at Athabasca University solved my concerns. Athabasca is a fully online school and has a flexible semester and course schedule. Students can choose to start their study at the first day of every month. The course period is 6 months which is longer than 4 months of online courses at Queens. Comparing to Queens online courses which have a fixed period and deadlines, there is no hard deadline of assignments and tests at Athabasca (Reference is provided as flexible and open online courses at Athabasca). I can study and complete coursework whenever and wherever. After a deep research and consideration, I think taking elective courses at Athabasca would help me balance online and in-person courses. Because I can focus more on cores and options if I take a reduced in-person course load. And I could have a more flexible study schedules of electives. It would benefit in keeping success on both cores and electives.

My plan is taking 3 electives and 1 core at the Athabasca University while studying my option and core courses at Queens University. The core I want to take at Athabasca University is CISC 365 because I cannot get into it at Queens. By consulting School of Computing, they provided me the equivalent course option at Athabasca (COMP372 at Athabasca is equivalent to CISC 365 at Queens. The related website is attached as problems getting into courses). I have 10 courses left until graduation. And my 2022 fall academic plan is taking STAT 463, CISC 497 and CISC 422 at Queens University while taking COMP 372 and an elective course at Athabasca University. In 2023 Winter, I plan to take MATH 311, CISC 465 and MATH 401 at Queens University, and 2 electives at Athabasca University. The 10 courses above should fulfill my degree requirement.

I hope you will give me a chance. Thank you for considering this appeal.

Sincerely,
Cailing