How can I make the most of the rest of my undergrad time

[audaciousanteater]

Hi everyone I will try to be concise, sorry if this has been beaten to death I am in a bit of a different situation than most are.

 

I attend a highly ranked liberal arts school (not ivy) with a small but respected science dept. This is my 4th semester. I have taken a gap year before university and did some great research at an Ivy and did very well there but no publications. I have been involved in research during the year and summer for all of my sophmore year and we may publish soon, I have worked many more hours than I am on the clock for. Based on my preformance on all previous standardized tests I think I will have a pretty good GRE score.

 

Here are my two problems

 

1. I am looking at the pharmacological side of chemistry and I spent my gap year working with drugs in a biochem lab and now I am working at my institution with the same drugs in a much more bio focused lab. (the two collaborate) Obviously Its not going to look good if I apply for chem and have only spent 2 weeks in a chem lab. I want to have a cohesive CV and have this research be a common thread so I would like to work in the lab that makes the drug for a summer, this may be possible.

 

2. My GPA is not so great. 3.45 total maybe 3.65 in major. Obviously I have time to improve and I find the upper level classes easier because of the format and my interest level. I have taken challenging courses including one graduate level course in my freshmen year and another now. I have a fairly severe psychiatric illness that I manage well, as far as I know aside from my occasional tics my coworkers are unaware of my problems. I know that my preformance is limited by disease so I can't really pile on more courses than the normal load.

 

I can likely get superb recommendation letters from one of my employers although my current one is a bit hard to read and can be intimidating but I believe they like me. I have more research hours than some masters students by the time they finish and will likely have a publication by the end of this. I plan on being a lab manager for two years, Can people offer some advice on how to best spend the time I have left. If people could let me know if there are any pitfalls or things I could get tunnelvision about it would be greatly appreciated