<p>It's kinda weird that I'd be posting here first as a senior in college, but I've got a strange situation. Basically, I had started working for a lab professor this summer as part of a program after switching from another one, and I thought everything had been going all right, so I stayed in the professor's lab for this past fall semester. I worked nine hours a week in the lab during the semester, and sometimes on weekends when I had experiments run over.</p>
<p>Recently, the professor had a computer-based project which is to be included in a proposal that she had us do on top of the labwork (the labwork is also part of the proposal, and even she acknowledged that I did a considerable amount of work). The professor didn't give a firm deadline at the time, other than saying the proposal is due January. Because of this, I had decided to focus on labwork first and then use some of winter break to do the project. When I reported to the professor what I had been doing, it was never iterated that I focus on the computer-based project first.</p>
<p>Fast forward to exam week. I stopped going to lab (though I did still work a little on the project), because school policy holds that professors are not allowed to leave assignments during reading period/exam week, I had completed my hours, and I had never had to go to lab during the exams under the other professor. The professor did not notify me that I should be in lab during that time, nor was I asked to go to lab for a week. Middle of exam week, I've got five finals in three days, and she emails me saying that she wants my part of the project done by the end of the week. I work on it for a few hours before deciding there's no way that's possible, and I send her all the work I did do over the past few weeks, offering to go in the next day to meet her if necessary (all the other times that week, I had exams). The professor didn't reply until break, and at that point, said that I would not be working in the lab next semester because I wasn't meeting the standards of the lab in terms of work. I haven't received credit for the work I did, either.</p>
<p>I've emailed the professor detailing what I did the past semester and apologizing for the miscommunication regarding the lab policies and deadline for the project, and sent a second email last week. I haven't gotten a response. I don't know if it's worth it to even try, given that I'm not sure I need to do research at this point, and I actually have a reasonably significant health issue that needs to be examined. My graduate school applications are all in, so that's not a huge factor at the moment; if I need a recommendation, I do have another professor I can ask. I had already been considering not working in this professor's lab any more, since she'd already put me through a lot of stress. For the record, it seems to be more than just me - there's a dearth of graduate students in the lab, and one of them is leaving with a Master's from being disgruntled.</p>
<p>Any thoughts? I guess I'd really like some opinions because it's a very confusing mess in my head... I know I could have probably handled the situation better, but I had both the health issue and graduate school applications on my mind, and given the amount of work I did, I just did not foresee this kind of problem...</p>