Dear Sky:

The lecturer’s body language (arms folded throughout the conversation with you and turning her back on you while you were still in her office instead of walking you to the door) while behaving differently with another student whom she saw before you is very unfortunate for you because, like you wrote, she is the closest alignment to your research interests and the who could have given you the most academic support, and because you invested so much into this attempted career change.

Her behavior with you was rude and unprofessional. It is not an indication that  you are not a bright student, but that she is rude and unprofessional. Even if she thought you were not a bright student, it was inappropriate, unprofessional and rude to cross her arms while talking to you and turning her back to you. Her misbehavior is not an indication of who you are, but of whom she is.

Because of her unprofessional behavior, I tend to think that she was rude to you not because she thinks that you are not a bright student and that she is wasting her time on you, but because she perhaps doesn’t like you, for whatever other reason (could be something about your looks that reminds her of a family member that she dislikes).

A professional should put their likes and dislikes aside when dealing with people in the context of their profession, but .. again, she wasn’t professional.

As far as what to do now, where to go from here: if you want to, tell me more about this lecturer, anything that you know about her (I am not asking for identifying information like her name, exact age etc.), her behavior toward you and others at other times, as well as if there is another person in the school you are attending that you can talk to about this issue.

anita