Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: My name is Sarah Van Wyngaarden, student ID10112308 and I am currently a fourth year Applied Economics major and Psychology minor. I am appealing today in order to be allowed to drop PSYC 342 with Dr. Lee Fabrigar. There is no issue with the professor, as he has been nothing but genuine and an understanding professor. However, it is on my own accord that I feel I would significantly benefit from dropping the course. Fourth year for me has so far been quite an overwhelming experience and I was unprepared for the amount of work and balance that was needed to hold my ground in all my courses. Since my major is economics, I have put all my focus in to my mandatory classes and have been working non-stop in order to excel in them. This in return has left me to struggle in PSYC 342 even though I have attended all classes.
Recently we have receive our midterm grades on Sunday November 6th, 2016, two days after the drop deadline. In all honestly I studied quite vigorously for the midterm, but was obviously shocked to see a 61 on a 40 of my grade midterm. Being in fourth year, and stressing over job application and grad school requirements, I can see that this course is significantly lowering my GPA for fourth year. This in return affects my ability to apply to grad school and to remain competitive in applications for certain job prospects. This is causing me a great deal of stress as I am now uncertain if I would even make the cut off for certain jobs or grad schools with this grade. With this, it is my own fault that I was unprepared and did not realize the extent of a third year psychology course. I do believe that when I was given enrollment to the course I did not understand the requirements that were needed in order to excel, and I can see that I have not met them. Right now I struggle to cope with all that is required in fourth year and have been unable to fully focus on PSYC 342 due to job interviews and entrance tests that are constantly being emailed to me. This has affected my academic performance as I know that I am much more capable of doing well and these circumstances have affected my performance in the class. Even though there is still a final for the course, I do not believe that I would be prepared for it and it would only cause me a greater deal of anxiety of which I do not need in my final year at Queen¿¿s.
I ask to be granted permission to drop this course in week 9 after the drop dead date. I see that after dropping it will not affect my ability to graduate as I have been in lengthy discussions with academic advisors, and I can see that dropping would support me mentally and academically. With this, I would be able to focus more on my passion for economics in order to go into a career path that I would thoroughly enjoy. Thank you for your consideration.
Sarah Van Wyngaarden