But I listened to all the “sensible” people and went for a graduate level program instead like an idiot

Oof, yeah similar situation though for me it was more around 20-21. Went to college for about 2-3 years, wasn’t doing too great with the required calculus classes & sort of dropped out. The upside was during that same time I landed a full time job in IT & was getting paid plenty, had a 401k, all that stuff.

But the “sensible” people around me (aka the boomer parents/uncles/etc. with their lifetime pensions) kept telling me to stop working & go back to school. That got into my head & eventually I quit my well paid job, burned another 2-3 years on school before realizing that just wasn’t going to work out for me. Then cashed out my 401k to pay off those school loans… those same “sensible” people didn’t tell me anything about retirement savings & I was too young & dumb to understand that stuff back then.

Nowadays I’m okay & don’t have any debt. But all that essentially meant I started over with my career later in life & am still trying to catch up with retirement savings.