Petition Letter
Dear Associate Dean of Faculty of Arts and Science, I am appealing to credit standing COMM211 (Fall, 2015).
The reason I deferred the exam was because I was severely ill to a point that I was forced to go to the hospital. Despite this situation, from the beginning of the semester this was the hardest course I was taking. It was my first time taking commerce course therefore, the content was very new to me and requires a great amount of work and understanding. Along with it being a completely different course for me, English is my second language, which made it even more difficult for me. Since this course was online, it was very difficult for me to understand the course material by myself. I tried to go to Professor, but there was always time conflict and when I did meet him I only finished a small portion of the material. I had a full course load so there was only a limited amount of time for me to focus on this course.
Ultimately the main reason for my bad performance was my physical and mental illness and my younger brother's (11 years old) arrival from Korea. My brother came to see if there is any good homestay family in Canada. He was supposed to stay with my Aunt in Toronto and she was going to take him to different places for homestay but unfortunately, my uncle discovered he had thyroid cancer so my aunt had to take emergency flight back to Korea. I was already traumatized with my uncle being sick and then my mother told me that my brother was going to stay with me. On top of being really stressed and physically ill, I had to take my brother to Toronto, Niagara Falls and New York City from Kingston. Big decisions were subjected upon me, as I had to decide which homestay would take care of my brother well. This had a huge impact on my free time to study for the exams that I had deferred. I was physically and mentally stressed and tired which made it way too hard to focus on my final exams. During my stay in Kingston, I had to take my brother everywhere I went because it is illegal for him to stay at my house alone. I could not even ignore my responsibilities during study time because I was the only one in Canada at that moment. I had to take care of him like my mother did and that was a huge burden on me because I never experienced that in my life. I was affected by this situation till my brother left (Mid-January) but I still have insomnia. The steps I took to try to overcome my problems include: going to counselling, takes medication recommended for my insomnia by the counsellor.
One of the main reasons for my poor performance was that I failed to control my stress and time efficiently so from now on my goal is to keep going to counselling to release my stress through talking about my problems. Also I am going to take fewer courses during the semester and complete the remaining during the summer. In addition to these enhancements I am going to quit my job so I can focus on school more and give more rest to my body. I will try to read course outline meticulously before I enroll in courses and check if I can catch up with course material. Plus, I will be mindful of course drop deadlines so I can drop without any academic penalty if I am struggling. If I have difficulty with course content then I will try to get help from Queen's tutoring service since they offer peer tutoring at affordable price. Furthermore, I will seek help from Queen's Learning Strategies Centre. They offer various workshops for undergraduate to enhance the range of skills such as coping with academic stress and managing time for exams.
The reason I deferred the exam was because I was severely ill to a point that I was forced to go to the hospital. Despite this situation, from the beginning of the semester this was the hardest course I was taking. It was my first time taking commerce course therefore, the content was very new to me and requires a great amount of work and understanding. Along with it being a completely different course for me, English is my second language, which made it even more difficult for me. Since this course was online, it was very difficult for me to understand the course material by myself. I tried to go to Professor, but there was always time conflict and when I did meet him I only finished a small portion of the material. I had a full course load so there was only a limited amount of time for me to focus on this course.
Ultimately the main reason for my bad performance was my physical and mental illness and my younger brother's (11 years old) arrival from Korea. My brother came to see if there is any good homestay family in Canada. He was supposed to stay with my Aunt in Toronto and she was going to take him to different places for homestay but unfortunately, my uncle discovered he had thyroid cancer so my aunt had to take emergency flight back to Korea. I was already traumatized with my uncle being sick and then my mother told me that my brother was going to stay with me. On top of being really stressed and physically ill, I had to take my brother to Toronto, Niagara Falls and New York City from Kingston. Big decisions were subjected upon me, as I had to decide which homestay would take care of my brother well. This had a huge impact on my free time to study for the exams that I had deferred. I was physically and mentally stressed and tired which made it way too hard to focus on my final exams. During my stay in Kingston, I had to take my brother everywhere I went because it is illegal for him to stay at my house alone. I could not even ignore my responsibilities during study time because I was the only one in Canada at that moment. I had to take care of him like my mother did and that was a huge burden on me because I never experienced that in my life. I was affected by this situation till my brother left (Mid-January) but I still have insomnia. The steps I took to try to overcome my problems include: going to counselling, takes medication recommended for my insomnia by the counsellor.
One of the main reasons for my poor performance was that I failed to control my stress and time efficiently so from now on my goal is to keep going to counselling to release my stress through talking about my problems. Also I am going to take fewer courses during the semester and complete the remaining during the summer. In addition to these enhancements I am going to quit my job so I can focus on school more and give more rest to my body. I will try to read course outline meticulously before I enroll in courses and check if I can catch up with course material. Plus, I will be mindful of course drop deadlines so I can drop without any academic penalty if I am struggling. If I have difficulty with course content then I will try to get help from Queen's tutoring service since they offer peer tutoring at affordable price. Furthermore, I will seek help from Queen's Learning Strategies Centre. They offer various workshops for undergraduate to enhance the range of skills such as coping with academic stress and managing time for exams.