Hello all!

I am new here. Decided to make a post here because i don't know what to do. I finished my MSc in january after 2.5 years. Stayed for 4 more months finishing a paper. Didn't even consider coming home for christmas to stay working. Anyway, i have been aplying for PhD's and it turns out that this super interesting professor wanted to work with me. I told him he could talk to my previous supervisor about me as i was sure that she would say good things. I was wrong. Because of what she said he won't accept me. She said i know nothing about controls or statistics (this was true at the beginning of my MSc -not anymore), that i am not good for lab work (how would she know if she never saw me working), and that my english skills leave much to be desired (she didn't even read my thesis before my defense and my committee gave me a very hard time for it). She said such terrible things about me that this prof even asked me if i should be working in a lab. I had told my previous supervisor i wanted to do a PhD and she should have said something instead of bad mouthing me. I want to send her and email but don't know what to say... I am devastated, and honestly thinking about leaving science for good...

I can't know if you were good or bad, only you can judge urself. By the way I would write her, telling how you feel and asking for explanations.
Supervisors often don't remember we are still learning and, above all, how difficult is to speak fluently a language which isn't your native one. Oh, I'd not be very polite, considering she hasn't been a good supervisor AT LEAST I would say: If I have to give up with science, only because you think I was bad, you have to give up teaching, cause you are a mess.

They have a legal obligation of a duty of care when providing references and have to differentiate fact from opinion. If you passed with merit or above I think you can factually prove a competence in the areas you were marked on. Is there another tutor on the course you could approach. I had a course lead who was obstructive in my PhD applications, gave me poor advice and never provided a reference. I got someone else to do them!. Maybe speak to thedmin of the previous course and discuss with them thwcreferenxe process? Some places you go through them rathercthan the academic staff as they have a set way of doing references and academic transcripts etc.