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Petition Letter: Academic Appeal Letter for Nicole Foote

March 17, 2022

To whom it may concern,

I am asking for permission to drop FILM 341 this Winter 2022 semester due to the following extenuating circumstances.
In Fall 2021, I participated in an academic exchange at Maastricht University, where I was only able to enrol in the equivalent of 4 Queens courses rather than 5. This was due to the difference in the academic calendars of Maastricht University and Queens, whereby if I had enrolled in the equivalent of 5 courses at Maastricht, I would have still been there while the Winter 2022 semester was beginning at Queens (Maastricht University??s fall semester runs until the end of January).
This left me a course short, and in an attempt to catch up, I enrolled in 6 courses this Winter 2022 semester. At first, I thought that I had correctly evaluated my capacity and I seemed to be managing everything well. However, as soon as I returned to campus and began attending in-person classes on February 28th, it became clear that with the added time constraints of in-person learning, 6 courses was far too much for me to handle.
Over the past few weeks, I have experienced a deteriorating mental health which has also led to my deteriorating physical health. This has looked like intense sleep deprivation and various other physical ailments. In addition, I tested positive for Covid-19 on March 14th, which has only set me back further academically.
Lastly, I have to take a summer course anyhow to fulfil my last elective credit at Queens. Since I will be taking this extra semester anyways, I will be able to fulfil a FILM 300-level credit this summer 2022 in order to made up for FILM 341 quickly. Because of this, it also doesn??t make sense for me to be taking 6 courses at once when I can take two courses this summer.
I appreciate your consideration and I want to make it clear that even with this dropped course, I will be applying to graduate and attend the November 1st, 2022 convocation, which is only one convocation period later than I had anticipated to graduate.
Attached you will see a letter from my psychotherapist who I have been seeing for a number of years who can appeal to my situation. Thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing back.

Sincerely,

Nicole Foote
20121740