Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: My name is Raquel Wallace. I am entering my fourth year at Queens University in an undergraduate program for Film and Media. I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience at Queens so far and look forward to finishing my bachelors degree and potentially doing a graduate program here as well.

Over the past three years, I have had the opportunity to work at various film and media jobs during school, and have spoken with several organizations in my field to ensure I have the proper skills to be competitive upon graduation. In recent conversations with two Los Angeles-based film companies, they explained that they are looking for employees who had some very specific skills taught in the courses for which I am requesting approval to take.?Although I continue to be an avid Queen??s University advocate and have had a wonderful school experience since 2019, I continue to see other Universities offering their media students more well-rounded courses that will keep its graduating students competitive within the film and media industry. My goal in attending Queens University was to develop my skills and understanding of marketing and communications through the courses offered in Film and Media. While this goal is mostly being met, I have met many students attending both US and Canadian Universities in media and communication programs and have found that they have access to courses that better prepare them with skills that would be in high demand from companies hiring students out of undergraduate programs. Although my degree specific courses to date have been excellent, they have been mainly film production-oriented and to improve my market competitiveness, I require additional academic and professional strength from more media-related courses, which happen to be offered at Arizona State University (ASU).

For the 2022-23 school year, I am requesting to take 2 additional courses at ASU as these courses are designed to give students real world skills and experience that are in high demand from employers in the media industry. One of the courses is an Introduction to Applied ECommerce with Shopify, which will teach me the skills of how to use Shopfiy to design and build a four-page website, implement voice, colours, typography and more to make a website on brand, optimize a website for search engines like Google and make changes to a webpage to make it easier for customers to make a purchase. The second course I would like to take is a Customer Acquisitions course with Google & Instagram Ads that is meant to demonstrate how to create and program stoppable posts on Instagram, run and manage advertising campaigns on Google Ads and Facebook Ads Manager, evaluate and report on campaign performance and optimize campaign to improve performance. Unfortunately, Queens does not offer courses of this nature to their Film and Media students a this time, which I believe is a detriment when competing for positions at leading edge media companies. These courses would allow me to continue my graduation year at Queens University, stay competitive within the marketplace upon graduation and fulfill the needs of my current employer.

I am submitting this Appeal Letter to secure your approval to take these supplementary courses to properly round out my academic experience in advance of my upcoming graduation. Last year, I completed my business certificate at the Smith School of Business and took a full course load in both semesters in addition to four (4) courses at ASU (split evenly between the fall and winter).
I am confident that Queens is supportive of my needs and challenges and by approving these courses as a supplement to my other Queens courses, I will have been provided with the best opportunity to acquire the skills I need to be competitive in the marketplace amongst my peers and ensure my future success as a Queens graduate. Thank you for your attention and consideration, and I hope that this appeal will be approved and that Queens can work with its?? film and media department to develop similar courses for future students.