Petition Letter
I¿¿d like to submit an appeal to retroactively drop Stat 263 after the deadline without academic penalty. Unfortunately this course has proven to be more difficult for me than I initially expected and with the added pressures of certain extenuating circumstances my concerns have grown. Now I fear that I will either fail the class or continuing forward in the course with extremely restrict my commitment to my other courses.
At the beginning of the term I felt the course was challenging but with some determination I managed to keep up and felt I was doing well considering the difficulty I found in the course. The course difficulty grew exponentially, in my opinion, and was definitely paced much more aggressively than my other first year courses. Despite efforts to ensure my highest level of achievement in the course I did poorly on the term test taken on October 13th. The results of this evaluation were returned on the 28th of October and were the first clear sign to me that I may have difficulty passing the course. However the weighting system in place allowed for the term tests initial weighting of 30 to be reduced to 0 (Making the final worth 90) giving it no effect on my overall grade. Thus, I believed that I could continue in the course and make up the marks on the final. This was the first thing that discouraged me from dropping the course before the deadline. I also received an email from the professor witch stated this, ¿¿Some people who don't do well on the term test go on to do fine in the course, including a student who ended up with an A in the course and sent me a very sweet note about it, (See pdf attached, which is word for word what I received.). The term test is heavily biased toward probability and that is a very tough topic for many students -- the final exam has probability too, but a much smaller percentage of the total mark. MOST students do better on the term test than the exam but there is always a subset of students who do much better on the exam and you might well fall in that group.¿ This was the second thing that reassured me to pursue the course past the drop deadline.
With determination I believed at the time that I could¿¿ve persevered and managed to at least pass the course. However, extenuating circumstances proved to exponentially worsen my situation in the course. On October 28th I experienced problems with my computer that held all of my school documents and study material that I had accrued over the term. The computer shutdown, ceasing to function and unfortunately I had not backed up the data on the computer. The next day October 29th I brought my computer to the Campus Computer Sales/Service center in Stauffer library. Evidence included with this appeal are the receipts for both drop off and pick up of my computer proving the times and circumstances. My computer remained there for 16 days (October 29th- November 14th) where I believed it would be fixed and returned to me. On November 14th I received a call that I could pick it up but to my extreme disappointment there was an issue resulting in their inability to fix it. As a result I was left behind in all my classes losing all of my work while at the same time still struggling to keep up in Stats 263. After this unfortunate extenuating circumstance I was left with the concern that if I placed all my efforts in doing my best to at least pass STAT 263, it would significantly reduce my study time and achievement level in my other 4 courses, which were never a concern for me. Losing all the data on my computer has made much more work for me than I ever anticipated in preparing for exams and my added concerns with STAT 263 have put me into the position where I feel desperate. This situation has severely affected my mental state due to the added stress and sadness that had come with attempting to catch up. I am extremely worried about my other courses and this is causing me a lot of mental anguish. I need to appeal to drop this course, in order to prevent this series of events from eventually affecting my future academic record at Queens.
I¿¿ve had a rough first term at queens and was met with other circumstances than just my untimely computer failure. On October 7 my locker at the Arc was broken into and my bag was stolen (key replacement receipt proves date and circumstance). The contents of the bag had a significant value. I¿¿ve still yet to find time to replace even the most basic items like my driver¿¿s licenses because I have been too distressed about my marks in my courses to have time to pursue such things. Also, after this incident I received little help from the ARC staff and campus security, which made me hesitate to seek help through other Queens¿¿s services in this endeavour. I feel all of the stressful extenuating circumstances building through the term coupled with the typical stresses and obstacles that come with the first term of university life distracted me from taking the right steps to ensuring I was setup for academic success at Queens. With it being my first year at Queens I was unsure of the appropriate process to address this issue and was apprehensive at first to seek out help from what I¿¿ve now learned to be an extremely friendly and helpful support staff. I hope that the evidence I¿¿ve provided properly reflects my need to retroactively drop this course. I will continue to educate myself on the appropriate deadlines and services that Queens has to offer to ensure that I am not left in the same predicament in the future.
Documentation for extenuating circumstances will be dropped of at the appeals office
At the beginning of the term I felt the course was challenging but with some determination I managed to keep up and felt I was doing well considering the difficulty I found in the course. The course difficulty grew exponentially, in my opinion, and was definitely paced much more aggressively than my other first year courses. Despite efforts to ensure my highest level of achievement in the course I did poorly on the term test taken on October 13th. The results of this evaluation were returned on the 28th of October and were the first clear sign to me that I may have difficulty passing the course. However the weighting system in place allowed for the term tests initial weighting of 30 to be reduced to 0 (Making the final worth 90) giving it no effect on my overall grade. Thus, I believed that I could continue in the course and make up the marks on the final. This was the first thing that discouraged me from dropping the course before the deadline. I also received an email from the professor witch stated this, ¿¿Some people who don't do well on the term test go on to do fine in the course, including a student who ended up with an A in the course and sent me a very sweet note about it, (See pdf attached, which is word for word what I received.). The term test is heavily biased toward probability and that is a very tough topic for many students -- the final exam has probability too, but a much smaller percentage of the total mark. MOST students do better on the term test than the exam but there is always a subset of students who do much better on the exam and you might well fall in that group.¿ This was the second thing that reassured me to pursue the course past the drop deadline.
With determination I believed at the time that I could¿¿ve persevered and managed to at least pass the course. However, extenuating circumstances proved to exponentially worsen my situation in the course. On October 28th I experienced problems with my computer that held all of my school documents and study material that I had accrued over the term. The computer shutdown, ceasing to function and unfortunately I had not backed up the data on the computer. The next day October 29th I brought my computer to the Campus Computer Sales/Service center in Stauffer library. Evidence included with this appeal are the receipts for both drop off and pick up of my computer proving the times and circumstances. My computer remained there for 16 days (October 29th- November 14th) where I believed it would be fixed and returned to me. On November 14th I received a call that I could pick it up but to my extreme disappointment there was an issue resulting in their inability to fix it. As a result I was left behind in all my classes losing all of my work while at the same time still struggling to keep up in Stats 263. After this unfortunate extenuating circumstance I was left with the concern that if I placed all my efforts in doing my best to at least pass STAT 263, it would significantly reduce my study time and achievement level in my other 4 courses, which were never a concern for me. Losing all the data on my computer has made much more work for me than I ever anticipated in preparing for exams and my added concerns with STAT 263 have put me into the position where I feel desperate. This situation has severely affected my mental state due to the added stress and sadness that had come with attempting to catch up. I am extremely worried about my other courses and this is causing me a lot of mental anguish. I need to appeal to drop this course, in order to prevent this series of events from eventually affecting my future academic record at Queens.
I¿¿ve had a rough first term at queens and was met with other circumstances than just my untimely computer failure. On October 7 my locker at the Arc was broken into and my bag was stolen (key replacement receipt proves date and circumstance). The contents of the bag had a significant value. I¿¿ve still yet to find time to replace even the most basic items like my driver¿¿s licenses because I have been too distressed about my marks in my courses to have time to pursue such things. Also, after this incident I received little help from the ARC staff and campus security, which made me hesitate to seek help through other Queens¿¿s services in this endeavour. I feel all of the stressful extenuating circumstances building through the term coupled with the typical stresses and obstacles that come with the first term of university life distracted me from taking the right steps to ensuring I was setup for academic success at Queens. With it being my first year at Queens I was unsure of the appropriate process to address this issue and was apprehensive at first to seek out help from what I¿¿ve now learned to be an extremely friendly and helpful support staff. I hope that the evidence I¿¿ve provided properly reflects my need to retroactively drop this course. I will continue to educate myself on the appropriate deadlines and services that Queens has to offer to ensure that I am not left in the same predicament in the future.
Documentation for extenuating circumstances will be dropped of at the appeals office