Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,

My name is Henry Pengyu Xiao. I am a second year student majoring in computer science - general computing. I would like to take this opportunity to respectfully appeal the academic withdraw decision. Upon the advice of Dr. Khanna, I also request to drop GEOL107 (FALL, 2016) and CISC101 (FALL, 2016).

In 2016 fall term, I remembered that it was my first time entered a university and study. I have been through a hard time in my first term year one. Even though I met the University English requirement for International student (IELTS test), there are still many things which I do nott understand during my year one study. The result was that I was nervous and anxiety, and also afraid to talk with professors, counselors and tutors. This result was that I was not understanding my courses, when I was running into problems. It was a really hard time for me to get used to university life, and it is really different with high school. University study is more difficult than high school in tests and contents, so it gave me a lot of pressure when I was year one. It also requested me putting more time than native student, because I am a second language student. I enrolled five courses during fall term 2016. I dropped two of them which were MATH121 and MATH111. I failed 3 of them (CISC101, CISC102 and GEOL107). But I was getting better in the second term. During my second term year one, based on advises from the queensu website and professors, I start to understand better, and get used to university's difficulty. I also talked with my courses' TAs, and participated every tutorials , so I enrolled three courses in winter 2017(CISC102, CISC121 and MATH112). I passed all three courses, and got B-, B- and C- (CISC102,CISC121 and MATH112). During the summer, my plan was to take a summer course but I failed.

However, I still want to improve myself and take more variety of courses at the university. So in year two, I took some economics and computing courses (CISC124, CISC203, CISC220 and ECON112). But unfortunately, my grandma became sick. In the middle of November 2017, my grandma felt unwell due to heart Issue. But, she got worse and worse, and she was admitted to the hospital in December 7th 2017 Originally, My father purchased a ticket to fly Canada on December 13, 2017, but my father canceled it due to my grandma's heart Issue. On April 19, 2018, my grandmother was sent to hospital again because of her chest pain. I was very stressed during that period. I still remembered the night when my dad told me that grandma was in the hospital. I have always been very close to my grandma. She took care of me since I was a baby. I called my dad every night to ask about my grandma. My dad told me not to worry. But I was deeply concerned about her well-being. I tried my best to balance my academic pursuit with my worries about my grandma. I felt nervous and anxious, which negatively impacted my studies. I only passed them in D level. I am still trying my academic pursuit this year(Winter, 2018), and take 5 five courses. After the things happened, I have met with Ms. Everson who gave me great tips about writing an appeal letter and processes of appealing. Upon the suggestions by Ms. Everson, I also met Dr. Khanna who gave me suggestions about appealing and future tips. I have also talked with Mr. Chen in QUIC. He gave me many suggestions and options, if I failed to appeal.

Thank you very much for your consideration.