Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: My name is Robbie Barnett-Kemper, and I am a fifth year Computing student here at Queen's. I'd like to ask to remain in my plan to graduate next year with a degree in Computer Science. I am appealing to the associate deans to be allowed to return to Queen's in September and take the course I need in order to graduate. It's been a difficult year in what was supposed to be my final year here at Queen's and I'd like to give you some information regarding the circumstances as to why my year went poorly.
In September of last year, I started taking medication to help with my documented memory and attention difficulties. I had discussed what it would be like to start on the drugs with my psychiatrist and my doctor but I was unprepared for how they would affect my body and mind. At first, I was getting my work done without delay in a timely manner, but I would find myself not eating for days and staying awake until the wee hours of the morning, unable to fall asleep. I would try and balance this by spending a day on, a day off, in an effort to come to some sort of equilibrium, but often I would forget to go back on and end up going days without it and then days on it.
One of the unintended consequences of drugs that affect your ability to keep focus, is that they are undiscerning of where your focus should be tasked. I would often end up working on a side project for 6 hours, only to realize I had three more assignments to write up, or I had missed an important test by getting distracted in cleaning my apartment.
By January I had two courses going quite well, one course going ok and one course going quite poorly. Instead of dropping it before the deadline, I made a concerted effort to double down on the courses I knew would be trouble in the semester, but unfortunately it was too late for one of them, and the other I passed by the skin of my teeth. I understand that I should have refocused my efforts and realized when to bow out, but I was hoping to graduate this year.