Petition Letter
November 27, 2019
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing this appeal to request extensions for assignments for DEVS 392 and DEVS 492. This is because I have been unable to submit a few assignments and attend classes due to extenuating circumstances. In early November, my mother was admitted to the hospital because she couldn't walk; upon diagnosis, it was discovered that she has osteoarthritis.
This medical diagnosis was unexpected and has had an immense negative effect on my family. She cannot perform daily activities; my family's only source of income is my father's job, meaning he could not take time off to help her. In addition, my only other sibling is my brother who is in his fourth year of university and it was too much work for him, so I had to take some on as much as I could from Kingston. To help my family, I needed to spend lots of time calling them to help figure out financial issues, and had to spend lots of time helping my mother draft emails and points to discuss with her doctors.
The stress caused by these extenuating circumstances prevented me from attending a few of my classes. Being up so late to discuss these issues with my family and the subsequent stress has negatively impacted my sleeping patterns, leaving me unable to attend both classes. In addition, they run consecutively (DEVS 492 is on Wednesdays from 11:30am-2:30pm and DEVS 392 follows from 2:30-5:30pm). I couldn't bring myself to go to six hours of class nonstop, only to fall asleep in the class. Furthermore, in the first class I tried to attend after the incident with my family, I fell asleep and a few students laughed at me. It shatters my confidence when I know I am capable of more, but can't demonstrate my abilities due to something that happened in my family.
Prior to this issue, I had been struggling in these classes and missed some classes. My intended goal was to work harder in November; I quit my extra-curricular club prior to this incident and also got permission from my supervisor to lower my workload as a Residence Don (which is how I financially support myself at Queen's in order to fund my living situation at Queen's). My plan was to give myself more time to attend prof and TA office hours to create and submit academic material that could result in higher grades. However, my extenuating circumstances have prevented me from being able to follow this plan, and additionally, they have failed to allow me to do the bare minimum for these courses.
I am requesting the following academic extensions for the following courses.
DEVS 392
- Extensions for two of the reading reflections which I failed to complete and submit hand in (my plan was to use feedback from my TA about my previous reflection to complete these reflections, as I did poorly in my first one. However, due to stress brought on by extenuating circumstances, I was unable to find time to work on these reflections and unable to attend TA office hours to write better reflections to make up for my previous poor grades)
- Extension on the 24 Hour Take-Home Essay (because the take-home is based on classes that I have missed due to stress brought on by extenuating circumstances)
DEVS 492
- Extensions for Week 11 Reading Reflections (failed to complete due to stress brought on by extenuating circumstances)
- Extension for the Sustainable Livelihoods Final Report (I was planning to work on and complete this assignment during the month of November, but failed to devote enough time to it due to the stress caused by extenuating circumstances)
This event has caused a lot of stress for me during the second half of November and has resulted in my inability to complete several assignments and attend several classes. My inability to complete these courses adequately may result in very low grades, or failing grades. I cannot risk my GPA to drop as I plan to apply to graduate programs. I am requesting extra time to complete the assignments so I have a chance at proving my academic abilities to the best of my ability. My reasoning for not needing extensions in my other courses is because the assignments of higher percentage weighting in my other courses were due prior to November. In addition, my other courses are GNDS 120 and FREN 106 (which are both first year courses, and one being online, so easier to complete at my own pace and/or requiring less effort than the upper year courses that I am appealing); the last course I am in (DEVS 411) did not require writing submissions/assignments after the month of October.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best,
Pravieena Gnanakumar
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing this appeal to request extensions for assignments for DEVS 392 and DEVS 492. This is because I have been unable to submit a few assignments and attend classes due to extenuating circumstances. In early November, my mother was admitted to the hospital because she couldn't walk; upon diagnosis, it was discovered that she has osteoarthritis.
This medical diagnosis was unexpected and has had an immense negative effect on my family. She cannot perform daily activities; my family's only source of income is my father's job, meaning he could not take time off to help her. In addition, my only other sibling is my brother who is in his fourth year of university and it was too much work for him, so I had to take some on as much as I could from Kingston. To help my family, I needed to spend lots of time calling them to help figure out financial issues, and had to spend lots of time helping my mother draft emails and points to discuss with her doctors.
The stress caused by these extenuating circumstances prevented me from attending a few of my classes. Being up so late to discuss these issues with my family and the subsequent stress has negatively impacted my sleeping patterns, leaving me unable to attend both classes. In addition, they run consecutively (DEVS 492 is on Wednesdays from 11:30am-2:30pm and DEVS 392 follows from 2:30-5:30pm). I couldn't bring myself to go to six hours of class nonstop, only to fall asleep in the class. Furthermore, in the first class I tried to attend after the incident with my family, I fell asleep and a few students laughed at me. It shatters my confidence when I know I am capable of more, but can't demonstrate my abilities due to something that happened in my family.
Prior to this issue, I had been struggling in these classes and missed some classes. My intended goal was to work harder in November; I quit my extra-curricular club prior to this incident and also got permission from my supervisor to lower my workload as a Residence Don (which is how I financially support myself at Queen's in order to fund my living situation at Queen's). My plan was to give myself more time to attend prof and TA office hours to create and submit academic material that could result in higher grades. However, my extenuating circumstances have prevented me from being able to follow this plan, and additionally, they have failed to allow me to do the bare minimum for these courses.
I am requesting the following academic extensions for the following courses.
DEVS 392
- Extensions for two of the reading reflections which I failed to complete and submit hand in (my plan was to use feedback from my TA about my previous reflection to complete these reflections, as I did poorly in my first one. However, due to stress brought on by extenuating circumstances, I was unable to find time to work on these reflections and unable to attend TA office hours to write better reflections to make up for my previous poor grades)
- Extension on the 24 Hour Take-Home Essay (because the take-home is based on classes that I have missed due to stress brought on by extenuating circumstances)
DEVS 492
- Extensions for Week 11 Reading Reflections (failed to complete due to stress brought on by extenuating circumstances)
- Extension for the Sustainable Livelihoods Final Report (I was planning to work on and complete this assignment during the month of November, but failed to devote enough time to it due to the stress caused by extenuating circumstances)
This event has caused a lot of stress for me during the second half of November and has resulted in my inability to complete several assignments and attend several classes. My inability to complete these courses adequately may result in very low grades, or failing grades. I cannot risk my GPA to drop as I plan to apply to graduate programs. I am requesting extra time to complete the assignments so I have a chance at proving my academic abilities to the best of my ability. My reasoning for not needing extensions in my other courses is because the assignments of higher percentage weighting in my other courses were due prior to November. In addition, my other courses are GNDS 120 and FREN 106 (which are both first year courses, and one being online, so easier to complete at my own pace and/or requiring less effort than the upper year courses that I am appealing); the last course I am in (DEVS 411) did not require writing submissions/assignments after the month of October.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best,
Pravieena Gnanakumar