Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Reasons of appeal for FILM 305

Hi there,

My name is Noelle Ochocinski and I am a third year Arts and Science Student. This past year my father passed from cancer in September 2018 before returning to school I helped take care my father and family throughout the summer until his death and after remained at home for a while.

Last semester, I was provided after given documentation to have an easy semester and drop my courses. In all honesty as a hard working student I was able to handle the two courses and help my family.

When coming into Winter Term I don't think I was fully aware of my mental health as it worsened. On December 7th, I was admitted into the Outpatient Clinic at KGH Hotel Deau in the Adult Eating Disorder Clinic. Here I have part taken in meeting nurses, Grief counselling and seeing a psychiatrist as well I take part in support groups and group therapy that takes place weekly.

While starting off the semester I was in five courses and quickly decided I must drop two to lower my stress and compensate for the time I spend getting help. This quickly helped and I was able to catch up and contact my teachers as well QSAS to further help me. When it came to February I had caught up in my two courses FILM 353 and FILM 352 but unfortunately due to being stressed finishing up my missed work I fell too behind in my third course FILM 305. It was stressing me out immensely and past the dead line to drop the course. I had the same professor for this course last semester so he was aware of my situation but I didn't know how I could drop it even with trying to catchup.

But as this semester has gone by I have missed almost every class in this course (305) and have not completed any work. In the past month of march my mental health worsened to being bed ridden for two weeks as I tried to catch up with school and focus more on myself and health. With being in pain and having bad mental health I have spent majority of this semester just trying to get by day to day. Due to battling with depression and keeping up with my hospital appointments as well as two other courses I felt defeated to finish anything in this course (305) and wanted to meet with Hailey to find more information on how to go about this.

QSAS took longer than I expected in getting any accommodations approved they weren't given until about week 11. So when waiting I tried to catch up to my other two courses and attempted my third course FILM 305 but knew I was too behind and wanted to drop. I believed even if QSAS helped me I wouldn't have finished all my work in this course to the best of my ability and my absence was too far gone to even get a good mark in this course. So when waiting for this to happen it prolonged my time to be applying for an appeal to drop FILM 305.

If there is more information or documentation to look for, Hailey who has helped me can provide more detail on my situation if it is needed. As well as I am providing below the contact information for Rev. Dr. Isaiah Dada my Spiritual Health Practitioner at KGH that I have been seeing weekly this semester to receive help. (address: 166 Brock Street, Phone: 613-544-3400 ext 2219 Email: isaiah.Dada@KingstonHSC.ca)

After dealing with QSAS I scheduled a meeting in week 11 but was unable to know how to apply for an appeal so in week 12 after meeting Hailey Evenden I was given the information. So I am now applying after I have failed this course to apply for a drop because I was too focused on improving my marks that I had missed the deadline. I am in the process of trying to figure out how this won't affect my transcript. Prior to these events, I took great pride in my grades and ability as a student. However, this semester has proven I need more time to grieve before taking on a full course load. Having a fail on my transcript would only stress me out more over the summer and I fully intend to retake this course with better focus and the time management with my counselling at KGH.

My fathers death was uncontrollable and as a student I am aware many go through this but as one trying to study the grief and other life circumstances do get in the way of courses and accumulate tremendous amounts of pressure. What is controllable for me is to be an advocate for myself and after receiving any help I can find this is why I am applying for an appeal in any ways I can be given help for my current situation. It is with hope you may understand my situation and provide me the opportunity to apply for a drop in this course and I will take it again next semester.

It is with great appreciation if Queen's University could help me complete this appeal in full understanding of my uncontrollable circumstances of the 2018-2019 school year. I would be more than happy to meet with someone to discuss in full my situation and how we can change it for the better.

Sincerely,

Noelle Ochocinski