Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I am formally petitioning for the rule restricting students to no more than two courses outside of their faculty to be waived. I had applied to graduate and was later informed through email that my application was denied since I took 3 courses outside of the FAS during my time at Queens. The third course, for context, was GLPH 271 during the fall of 2024. I am requesting this exemption for a couple of reasons.

1. I am in a very precarious financial position. Taking a required course during the summer will cost around 700$, a huge sum for me considering I am already in debt thousands due to student loans I took out. I expected to begin paying my loans back this summer, and I currently receive no financial help from either of my parents (my dad is out of the picture and my mom is on welfare). Having to take this course will severely hamper my post-University plans, and will impact my job prospects since I will be forced to study another semester. It feels extremely arbitrary and unfair that something so specific is forcing me to pay hundreds of dollars and spend dozens of hours I should be spending working to pay back my loans. Even if an online course is provided, I will still be forced to divert attention away from working to complete coursework for a course I never should have taken to begin with.

2. There were almost no guardrails to prevent a student in my position from making this mistake. Some courses require you to have a prerequisite, or department permission in order to take a course. Nothing like this existed on SOLUS prior to or during my course selection process, and something as simple as a popup could have prevented this mistake. Additionally, there is an alarmingly low number of FAS elective courses offered that I could have taken to fulfill my requirements. This forced me to consult with fellow students and look elsewhere, culminating in my selection of GLPH as an elective which I completed in order to fill my schedule.

I recognize and take responsibility for not having known of this rule beforehand. I take accountability, and ultimately I will have enrolled in a course in preparation for the summer, as it is still a goal of mine to be the first person in my immediate family to graduate with a University degree. However, I am begging for an exception in order to help correct what I perceive as flaws on behalf of the course selection process as well as aid my personal financial circumstances. To whoever reading this, please put yourself in my shoes. I implore you to consider the effects another semester will have (both financially and psychologically) on myself, and I hope this petition will convince you to provide an exception for me in order to graduate this spring. Thanks for your time, and take care.