Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello,

To whom it may concern,

I hope all is well.

I am sending this petition hoping to drop LAW 201/701 after the academic deadline. I have taken this course of action as I struggled to do well in the course for several reasons and feel as though, due to extenuating circumstances, I could not perform as well as I could have if they had not occurred.

One of the extenuating circumstances I was dealing with was the balance of taking this course while completing the courses for my exchange program. An academic advisor told me that this was a mandatory course I needed to take to satisfy my POLS requirements, and I have recently found this to be incorrect information. Had I known this was not mandatory, I would not have taken the class and tried to consistently push through regardless of all the stress and mental challenges I faced from other school-related issues. I took the course as I thought I had to despite feeling unprepared and stressed out as I tried to balance my exams for exchange and the two courses I took this summer at Queen’s. I could not manage both as I was studying and taking multi-day exams for three courses while trying to stay on top of the online summer courses. This was made more challenging because there was a 5-hour time difference. So I would be doing work for my courses in England and then would have to transition to my classes at Queen's. The reason why this is important and hindered my ability to do well is because my registration in the course coincided with the busy exam period, and once I fell behind on the first few assignments, I found it impossible to get back on track. Mentally, I found it very difficult and struggled due to the stress; however, I kept going and pushing, trying to do well as, again, I was under the belief that this course was mandatory, which I have now found out that it is not.

This was all worsened by the fact that once my exchange ended, I then had to deal with trying to sort out my exchange credits and transferring my transcripts. This has been a big issue I have been trying to sort out as my exchange school, the University of Manchester, experienced severe strikes throughout the second semester and which are still ongoing. I have been dealing with and focused on trying to get my grades and speaking to professors regarding my assignments, as I cannot proceed into the new school year without them. This added stress has hindered my performance in the course and taken away time that I could have used for the course.

Since the beginning of the course, I have had to manage several problems which have brought about immense stress, fatigue and lowered any chance of success I could have achieved in this course. I even signed up for the course late and my persistence in continuing to take the course came from the mindset that it was required, as this was explained to me by an academic advisor over the phone. I have now found out that this is not correct and believe that the course should be dropped and changed on my transcript. This is due to the fact that, as explained throughout this appeal, several extenuating circumstances hindered my performance, and despite trying my absolute best to manage all of these situations and the mental stress and fatigue they caused, I could never quite recover my grade. Had I known this course was optional for my POLS requirements, I would not have taken the course and tried to push through. The grades I have received are not an accurate representation of how I could have performed in the course without the extenuating circumstances.

Thank you for your time,
20229977