swiggles

Hey all, thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this. I'm starting to do some research into the topic and I'm feeling very nervous and overwhelmed. If this is the inappropriate area for this post I apologize and I'd be happy to look elsewhere I'm rising senior at a well known and popular school for IR in the US and I'm very interested in pursuing a career in IR, Asia/Korea Studies, some combination of the two etc. For the first 2 years of undergrad (plus last fall to an extent where I received 2 A's a B and an F) my performance was pretty middling around a 3.2. Last spring things more or less came to a head and I had a terrible semester. Finally managed to admit I was an alcoholic and start dealing with it this year, ended my second semester of Junior year with a 3.87 and a 4.0 for the summer class I just wrapped up. To be frank I'm worried that things are too little too late for my long term goals as I'm going to be graduating with a 3.0-3.1 GPA If I keep things up which is... less than competitive for many of the amazing programs I would have loved to attend like Asian Studies at Georgetown SFS, the Korea specialization at SAIS, Korea studies at SOAS in London, similar programs at UCSD, Elliot School, Lee Kuan Yew etc. I'm looking for information on what i can do in the next 4-5 years before I'm ready to apply to these programs to unscrew myself. I figure that the only way to really mitigate my failings is to start early while I'm still in school. In terms of the GRE, I took an official computer delivered practice test this afternoon without really knowing much about the test and got a 326 (167 verbal 159 quant). I think I could bump my quant score up a lot with a little bit of practice. I have coursework in micro/macro econ, calculus, and quantitative research methods but my performance is very middling as I took those classes before sobering up. I took and... failed International econ last fall which is considered an upper level IR class at my school, but I retook it this spring and got a full A (previously mentioned F of that semester). I also have some very middling grades in Korean which I'm hoping to spend the whole summer studying up on. In terms of my quasi-work experience I have a couple internships Last summer at a DHS component in their HR department working with hiring data to analyze trends and some experience in security operations Full year split into two springs at a well regarded Military aerospace consultancy doing research and analysis that were used to an extent in the products sold to business customers. Some other less relevant stuff like a community planning internship in a city close to my hometown. In summary. I have no idea what to do next other than keep my grades up. If anyone has any tips please let me know whether that involves additional coursework for me to focus on. professional avenues to explore etc. I want to do everything I can to snatch my dreams back and I'm looking for guidance haha.