chihuahua

I know it is a little early -- I am only a sophomore right now, but I have screwed up royally in school. I go to one of the 7 sisters and I'm a soc major. The first semester of my freshman year, I did not care about school at all because I completely hated it. This ended up in a 2.550 GPA. I noticed that I had screwed up and I took a course over winter break to boost my GPA a little. It was an intense course in which I did ethnographic research to discover disparities amongst people from different economic classes on campus. I got an A and I was able to bring my GPA to a 2.667. In the spring, I started doing volunteer work (aka getting involved in the community) and I was able to get a B+ (3.33) average in my classes and bring my overall GPA to a 2.933. My volunteer work is all humanitarian work that deals with people (specifically, children) that are socio-economically disadvantaged and I am still continuing to do it.

This semester, I had to drop a class because I was pretty much failing, but I am sure that I will get at least a 3.33 (probably higher -- 3.33 is lowest) by the end of the semester with the rest of my 14 credits.

As I want to go to an MA/phD program (a professor has recommended UChicago, but I don't have the stats right now), I do have research lined up for the fall (prob. having to do with socio-economics) semester of my junior year. I already have close connections to 2 of the faculty members in my department. One of them is trying to get me in touch with yet another, so that my junior year research will actually happen junior year. I also have another project that I will be working on throughout the entire course of my senior year, in order to graduate with honors (a 3.0 and a research project is required for honors). In the summer after my sophomore year, I will [hopefully] be doing even more research, but it will not be tied into my socio-economic interests. In the spring semester of my junior year, I will not be able to do research (well, domesticly), because I will be abroad.

So, I know a screwed up, and I know it might be a little early to start thinking about all of this, but i just want some advice as to what I should do for the rest of my 2.5 years at school. I don’t want to continue screwing up – it’s not at all fun.
What should I do in order to make it possible for me to eventually get into an ma/phD program ? I am thinking about taking a year off after undergrad in order to get some field-work experience in sociology. I will apply to an ma/phD program afterwards, so I still have some time. I just want to know if I am on the right track… and also, if my 2.5 really screwed me over.