Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Jenn Stephenson,

I am appealing to late drop PSYC241 (Winter, 2023), HIST210 (Winter, 2023), and PSYC221 (Winter, 2023). I am also appealing for credit standing for PSYC100 (Fall/Winter, 2022) and PSYC236 (Winter, 2023).

During my first year at Queens I experienced one extenuating circumstance of losing my mother’s best friend to breast cancer, this caused my GPA to lower to a point where I received a letter in May warning me of the requirement to withdrawal for one year if I did not raise my GPA during my second year at Queens. This was a wake up call for me, going into my second year I was prepared to put my full efforts into my academics as obtaining a degree is very important to me. September 5th 2022, the night before the first day of classes I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer’s disease. I am aware details are not important but for me this detail is. I was striving for a degree in Psychology as the Alzheimer’s gene runs in my family, not only did I have to process the death of a family member it also put a strain on my feelings towards a degree in Psychology. Despite this I worked very hard Fall 2022 and pushed all problems aside as I felt as if I could push through it and continue my degree in Psychology. I submitted an academic consideration for extenuating circumstances at this time because the first few weeks of processing the death were extremely difficult for me as I have never lost a family member so unexpectedly. Again, I pushed all feelings aside post consideration and put all my focus into school. I would say I had a ‘decent’ Fall semester. Winter 2023 is when I started to struggle mentally, I was taking PSYC236 which is Clinical Psychology. I found myself having an extremely difficult time learning the content as brain degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s were part of the course content. I was left feeling unable to complete readings as it brought up feelings I had pushed aside and ultimately had not let myself grieve. I struggled for the first few months of Winter 2023 and just felt unable to complete daily tasks that did not even relate to my academics, I did not take care of myself and my academics were unfortunately affected to an extreme. As time went on and the semester was coming to an end I had realized the position I had put myself in and felt like I had to fix it before asking for any help or considering dropping the courses. I put my best efforts throughout the last month and a half but unfortunately it was not enough to get my course grades where they needed to be, ultimately resulting in my GPA not getting to the threshold it needed to be and me having to withdraw from Queen’s for this year (2023-2024). Taking this year off and processing my grief has allowed me to realize that a degree in Psychology is not for me, it is not something I feel like I want to do or can do anymore. Since December 2023 I have been in touch with an academic advisor Jenna Kring who has worked with me to come up with a plan when I return to studies in Fall 2024. I plan to switch to Film and Media which I personally believe I will excel further in rather than in Psychology, but in order to do this properly Jenna advised to me that I should apply for later drop and credit standing for those Winter 2023 courses to have a GPA that more accurately represents who I am as a student. I work very hard in my academics when I apply myself to them, further proof of this is when I wrote my final exam for PSYC221 Cognitive Psychology. “Ironically enough, although not aligned with the rubric, your answer to the question about insight/non-insight problems was the most insightful answer I read for that question. If you do choose to continue your schooling now or sometime later, I know you have what it takes.” This is from an email I received from the TA who graded the last two questions of my final exam. I wanted to include this to really show I did put my best efforts in within the last month and a half but just could not get myself where I needed to be academically. I have big plans when I return in September and the entire point of this letter is really because when I do return, I want to represent myself in the most accurate way possible. Receiving these late drops and credit standings will be the first step to achieving that