<p>Your graduate school plans will not work out very well for you if you keep doing “research” at the expense of studying. If you’re getting 59/80 in your classes, you should be studying, not doing “research”, because, at this point, you can contribute very little to “research”, which is also very well evidenced by your lack of publications.</p>
<p>So, forget about “research” for now and concentrate on being a better student. Because that low GPA of yours will keep you out of top graduate programs.</p>
<p>I cannot overemphasize this - if you’re looking for become a research scientist, you need to first and foremost excel academically. What you’re trying to do now - doing something you call “research” without studying - may make you a qualified lab technician, but will not make you a good researcher.</p>