how do you deal with a supervisor who you didn't get along with?

[Hopey1984]

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i just got official feedback (grades and a report) from my thesis supervisor. it is not good, but hard to tell because one part is excellent (my actual paper received a grade of A+) and one part is bad (grade C (!!!) about reliability and participation in team).

i do not know what to do. i am very upset about this because i did not deserve a C and while my lab participation was not excellent, i know, it was influenced by a myriad of factors that my supervisor failed to acknowledge, including a lot of lab politics and miscommunications and misunderstandings of commitments, and then on his part, a failure to change that. there are a lot of details involved. and i am not making excuses for my subpar performance, but i know for A FACT that it's not as simple as being my fault.

so, what do you do?
does anyone ever "come back" from this kind of thing?
i am so scared this will affect my future: i will never get a job, will never get into any kind of graduate school, i will be homeless and go insane and end up on the streets or institutionalized
(okay i know that's distorted but -- i mean, i HOPE it's distorted... please? it is, right? it's not just logical that one subpar eval will ruin my entire future ?!?!!?)

do i even ask this professor "would you be willing to write me a good LOR" (and worst case he says "no"), or do i just have to pretend like i never did a thesis in undergrad, or do i have to explain to future schools/employees that "yes, I worked with Dr____ and he didn't like me for such and such reason".

to add, part of the reason i was unreliable was because i was dealing with family and personal issues this eyar. i never told him that though, because i didn't want it to seem like i was making excuses and didn't want to let him know such personal things. well, it seems like that was a failing move on my part.

thanks so much for listening. i know this is quite the ramble but i am pretty heartbroken and scared right now. 🙁

 

[student113]

Tough situation 🙁

The thing is, whether or not it's as simple as "your fault," from any perspective, doesn't really matter in this case. So the thing to do is to draw the least amount of attention to the negative part while still trying to receive some credit for what you did.

I say list the activity/thesis, it's highly highly unlikely they will contact the supervisor, and you can talk about the positive part in interviews. Don't ask for a LOR - a bad comment about your personality is way way more significant than any good research.

Good luck!

 

[ThaliaNox]

Nobody likes to think that they might have been a poor team player, but do consider the possibility that there might be some truth in what your advisor has said about you. Acknowledging your weaknesses is the first step towards fixing them. Remember that communication is important, on both sides. You feel your grade is unfair, but you did fail to tell him about your personal issues, so for all he knows you ARE running off when you should be working.

 

[Ischemic]

No, man the worse case is not he says no. If he has it in for you he'll say yes and just really hammer you in the rec. THAT would be the worse case scenario. Why you even bothering asking him for a rec if you know he hates you. There's got to be other profs you can ask.