Petition Letter
Dear Queen¿¿s University Associate Dean,
To begin, I would like to thank you for taking the time to review my situation and consider allowing me to join Spanish 111 this summer. As an aspiring French teacher majoring in LLCU, this course is very important to my academic plan. I have worked hard with Vicky Andrews to develop a spreadsheet outlining my schedule each year at Queen¿¿s, but I had to alter this last year as I dropped a course both terms of the 2018/19 year. This was because I did not prepare myself for the transition into a new house with new roommates and more difficult second-year courses. During the time of summer enrollment on Solus, I was still having a hard time with the transition. I have been diagnosed with anxiety and depression which (despite counselling, medication and preventative measures) led me to begin self medicating with marijuana. With heavy use, my brain became quite scrambled from February to April and it was difficult to make it through daily tasks. This was the state of my brain when I believed that I was enrolling in Spanish 111 on Solus. In March, I went online, found my course, added it to my shopping card, and believed that I enrolled in the class. With everything else that has been going on as I try to battle addiction and control my mental health, I let Spanish 111 out of my mind until May (as I thought I had it taken care of). In my head, I was sure that the course started on Monday May 13th, though I realize I should have been much more attentive to ensure I had the right start date (no explanation for this one). When the course did not appear on my OnQ page on May 13th, I emailed the professor immediately who promptly advised me to contact Arts and Science Online. I called them on Tuesday, and they confirmed that I had not actually enrolled in the class and that I had only made it as far as adding Span 111 to my enrollment shopping cart without taking the final step. They gave me some options to consider going forward, and I reviewed my academic plan to see if there were any July courses that I could take that contributed to my plan (there were not). This took me until Friday May 17th, and on Friday I decided there were no alternative options and I must submit an appeal to be part of Spanish 111 this summer. Overall, this is happening because I did not click ¿¿finish enrolling¿ on Solus and I have just had SO much else going on in my life it took me until the day that the course was supposed to start to realize there was a problem. I have planned on taking this course for months, and when I called last week there were still 28 spots available in the class. I truly apologize for the inconvenience of going through this process because of my failure to click a button, but I hope that you can understand my extenuating circumstances. I have tried two different medications since March, have been going to therapy regularly, and am educating myself about addiction. I can provide records of counselling with Dr. Julie Gowthorpe if needed, otherwise I am registered with Queen¿¿s Accommodation and have seen counselors in DunMac as well. I had an 81 average this year and a 4.0 GPA in my first year, and I plan to achieve grades similar to these throughout my whole Queen¿¿s experience. Please allow me the opportunity to continue on my academic journey this summer in Spanish 111, and I will ensure that a mishap like this does not happen again by working on my mental health, responsibility, and organization.
Sincerely,
Deandra Way
To begin, I would like to thank you for taking the time to review my situation and consider allowing me to join Spanish 111 this summer. As an aspiring French teacher majoring in LLCU, this course is very important to my academic plan. I have worked hard with Vicky Andrews to develop a spreadsheet outlining my schedule each year at Queen¿¿s, but I had to alter this last year as I dropped a course both terms of the 2018/19 year. This was because I did not prepare myself for the transition into a new house with new roommates and more difficult second-year courses. During the time of summer enrollment on Solus, I was still having a hard time with the transition. I have been diagnosed with anxiety and depression which (despite counselling, medication and preventative measures) led me to begin self medicating with marijuana. With heavy use, my brain became quite scrambled from February to April and it was difficult to make it through daily tasks. This was the state of my brain when I believed that I was enrolling in Spanish 111 on Solus. In March, I went online, found my course, added it to my shopping card, and believed that I enrolled in the class. With everything else that has been going on as I try to battle addiction and control my mental health, I let Spanish 111 out of my mind until May (as I thought I had it taken care of). In my head, I was sure that the course started on Monday May 13th, though I realize I should have been much more attentive to ensure I had the right start date (no explanation for this one). When the course did not appear on my OnQ page on May 13th, I emailed the professor immediately who promptly advised me to contact Arts and Science Online. I called them on Tuesday, and they confirmed that I had not actually enrolled in the class and that I had only made it as far as adding Span 111 to my enrollment shopping cart without taking the final step. They gave me some options to consider going forward, and I reviewed my academic plan to see if there were any July courses that I could take that contributed to my plan (there were not). This took me until Friday May 17th, and on Friday I decided there were no alternative options and I must submit an appeal to be part of Spanish 111 this summer. Overall, this is happening because I did not click ¿¿finish enrolling¿ on Solus and I have just had SO much else going on in my life it took me until the day that the course was supposed to start to realize there was a problem. I have planned on taking this course for months, and when I called last week there were still 28 spots available in the class. I truly apologize for the inconvenience of going through this process because of my failure to click a button, but I hope that you can understand my extenuating circumstances. I have tried two different medications since March, have been going to therapy regularly, and am educating myself about addiction. I can provide records of counselling with Dr. Julie Gowthorpe if needed, otherwise I am registered with Queen¿¿s Accommodation and have seen counselors in DunMac as well. I had an 81 average this year and a 4.0 GPA in my first year, and I plan to achieve grades similar to these throughout my whole Queen¿¿s experience. Please allow me the opportunity to continue on my academic journey this summer in Spanish 111, and I will ensure that a mishap like this does not happen again by working on my mental health, responsibility, and organization.
Sincerely,
Deandra Way