How should I begin in real estate investing

[Drazen Quizon]

Hey, I'm a 21 year old student in my third year of university. I have 22000 dollars in student loan debt, i recently had a credit card go to collections but paid in full in January of this year, but other than that i have no consumer debt. I work as a server at a restaurant and i have 3000 dollars in savings. I know that i have to pay off the debt first and work on my credit score in the mean time, but my question is this.

1. Should i focus all my earnings to paying off my debt or to save while paying off the debt?

2. Is there anyway of working on my credit so that i can start investing sooner?

3. What should i start doing to ease my way into investing i.e. reading books, looking up how to do deals, basics of real estate investing?

4. Is there any way to start investing now?

5 If you were in my position right now with debt and credit score, what steps would you take to start investing?

thanks in advance for your input and advice