Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To the Associate Dean (studies)
Rohan Nair (20069605)
17rn@queensu.ca
Department of life sciences, 2nd Year student

The purpose of this letter is to request a late drop of three of my courses during the fall term of 2018; PHGY 215, CHEM 281 and BCHM 218.

The summer (august 13th) before the fall term I had got my neck checked from an injury I sustained doing martial arts 18 months back. I came to queens with the neck problem which still hadn¿¿t been diagnosed when I got a call from my family physician Dr. Gelman saying I had mild Anterolisthesis (spinal slippage). He recommended me to an orthopedic surgeon in Kingston as I did not have the time to go home to Toronto. The Orthopedic surgeon said that the slippage was mild, and surgery wasn¿¿t necessary nor that there was anything he himself could do to ease the pain and recommended me to a physiotherapist. The spinal slippage as noted in the document caused pain and soreness when looking down for long periods of time and interfered with my sleep. In addition, I could not get any exercise because my neck was always in pain, yoga and lifting weights were no longer an option. This impacted my early year ability to study for long periods of time and sit up in class (especially the long physiology seminars). At this point I was still going to class and trying my best to ignore the injury at least until I got back to Toronto. Then on October 3rd right before midterm season I got a call from my mother saying that my grandfather had suddenly passed away in India. Now though a grandparent isn¿¿t as severe as a parent it is the first member of my direct family to pass away, and in such a sudden and shocking manner. This made me very depressed causing me to stay inside and completely isolate my self from going to class. Coming from the BISC my first year I didn¿¿t really know anybody who I could talk to or what kind of support system was in place at queens or have very many friends here. I could not grieve with my family as they were in India at the funeral which I could not attend. I didn¿¿t reach out to anybody or talk to anybody for about a month and I completely stopped going to class. The injury just added to the mental distress I was feeling because I could not get a workout in to get some endorphins. Mid terms rolled around, and I did terrible, it was extremely difficult to catch up especially in those three courses where going to class is necessary for success. I did not drop the courses because in my mind I didn¿¿t want to cause my parents any more stress and worry so I convinced myself I could push through and pass and another part of me didn¿¿t want to believe I could fail a course as I have never done so in the past. I was still very depressed and studying felt horrible on my mental state so catching up was almost impossible for me. I did not go to my biochem final or organic chem final because I knew I was too far behind. The reason these courses were affected and not my other two is because those 3 were core courses that required in class time, going to tutorials and studying for long periods of time whereas online microbiology was easy to do from my bed and neural psychology was simplistic to me relative to the physiology courses and much of it was review of what I already knew. Those two courses still did not go well with a D+ and C+ . The reason this appeal was not submitted earlier was I had not talked to an academic advisor and did not know this was an option and she recommended it

For future success I have a very clear plan, I am retaking Physiology 215 this winter 2019 semester online and will re do CHEM 281 over the summer 2019 online. In addition, I can retake BCHM 218 in first semester of 3rd year.To make my third year lighter I will see if taking a 3rd year course over the summer is an option. During the break I have received physiotherapy for my neck, and it is significantly better. I have also had the winter break to re asses my goals and deal with my grandfather¿¿s death with my family. I feel much more confident and motivated that this semester will be very different especially because my course load is lighter with a philosophy/ethics course and online historical physics course. The academic advisor gave me the contact info ¿¿Good to talk¿ and the Student Welfare services in case I need it during this year. I hope this is enough to grant an appeal and appreciate you¿¿re time and understanding in this matter.
Sincerely, Rohan Nair