Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Hello,

My name is Julia Schack and I am a 4th-year student who is majoring in Life Sciences. My appeal request is to drop a course after the academic deadline.

I have been experiencing certain extenuating circumstances that have made the completion of this course unfeasible. On March 14th I submitted a notice for extenuating circumstances considering some deeply personal psychological challenges and domestic problems. Since this date, these issues have persisted. The initial events that ignited these circumstances began the week of March 7th. I sought out academic consideration that weekend and tried to get back on my feet. This domestic problem, however, has greatly impacted me and is not something that will be resolved for some time. My sister, who is autistic, suffers from severe depression and had made an attempt on her life that week. Since then she made multiple more attempts and continues to struggle. I have done my best to compartmentalize and remain on top of all my work, but the course I am looking to drop, MATH 281, has been revealed to be too much. I have found it incredibly difficult to allocate the same amount of time to this course as I need to and as I had in the past.

While I was able to receive extensions on various assignments in my other courses, due to the nature of learning in MATH 281, not being present for the past month and a half has deeply impacted my ability to do well in the course. In my other courses, I was able to buckle down, do the research, and finish the assignment. Out of sight out of mind. In MATH 281, however, I need to be constantly revising and learning in preparation for tests and the final exam worth 40% of our grade. My lack of focus and presence this past month has made this consistent learning extremely difficult. For this semester I had reached out to a tutoring service and had been receiving tutoring in the subject prior to these events, but due to these extenuating circumstances, I had to cancel many of those meetings which have further impacted my ability to do well in the course. My family has been on a waitlist to attend family counselling to learn how we can best deal with this situation and are hoping to begin that as soon as I am back home on Salt Spring Island. Since none of my situations required urgent support, I have been receiving support from Good2Talk. I have been using this service weekly since the event.

been seeing a personal counsellor for this ongoing situation and my family has also been attending family counselling to learn how we can best deal with this situation. Due to the multifaceted nature of this issue and the inability for it to be resolved within a set time frame, the steps I have taken to deal with this extenuating circumstance are ongoing and will be for quite some time.

It should also be noted that this is my second time taking MATH 281. I originally chose to take MATH 281 during Winter 2021 due to an intense interest in and love for math. It is not required for my degree, though I had originally planned on completing a math minor. MATH 281, however, proved to be far more difficult than my previous math courses in which I had excelled. Real analysis is a very difficult concept in math and, to be honest, I probably would not have chosen to take MATH 281 in a typical year. However, due to COVID, Queen's wasn't offering many math courses and I thought I would give it a shot. Since I was planning on minoring in math at this point, to satisfy the requirements of the minor I kind of had to choose one of the few courses the math department was offering. Prior to COVID, the math department offered more courses, many of which were of interest to me, so I had chosen to minor based on the assumption I would be able to take these courses, but as we all know, COVID kind of messed everyone's plans up a little bit. Coupled with a technological error on the final and a less than satisfactory online learning environment, I failed MATH 281 in Winter 2021.

I wanted to retake it this semester and prove to myself that I was capable, but these unforeseen circumstances have left me unable to dedicate the necessary time and energy to do well in the course. With a final worth 40%, my lack of ability to focus on the course over the past month and a half will greatly impact my ability to do well on the final and in the course. As a fourth-year, I have also been juggling graduate school applications, job applications, and moving out along with all of this. I tried my best to stay on top of everything else in my life, including my other three courses (where I am projected to receive A's or A+'s), my various clubs and extracurriculars, and volunteering, but MATH 281 has proven to be too much. While I understand that I will still have an (F) on my transcript, the emotional toll of this past semester has made the completion of this course unfeasible and I would be more prepared to leave my transcript with one (F) rather than two.

Based on my performance in my other courses over the past years, I hope this situation can be met with understanding and not be a reflection of my academic ability and work ethic.

With much appreciation,

Julia Schack