I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Could you please provide screenshots of the issue you're having when you save the file? Preferably screenshots before and after you save it, showing how saving leaves the file in the empty state.
Also, could you please clarify what you mean by the prof's info popping up? Again, a screenshot might be best here.
In the photo attached, I have my work on the left that I am tryin to knit into a PDF file. However, when I select Knit to PDF, the file on the right pops up. When I save my work and try to reopen it, everything is gone and it just shows an empty template as if I had not started my work. This work space was created by my professor for one of our classes, and in the file on the left, his RStudio information is popping up, not mine. I have not had this problem in the past, so I am not sure why I am having it now.
I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble! We are looking into your project. If you do not change your output to pdf_document - for example if you leave it set to html_notebook do you get the expected output? If so, could you try deleting the file called newjournal.nb.html before setting your output in the RMD file to pdf_document and try knitting again? Please let us know if either of those changes work for you.