Advice for a college sophomore on how to approach REI

[Gabriel G.]

Hello! I'm currently a student at the University of Texas at Austin majoring in Finance. I spend most of my time in between Houston (hometown) and Austin, TX. Due to a mix of scholarships and having parents that are good with saving money and willing to help out with my education, I'll graduate college without debt. Post undergrad, I'll also stay in Texas. I have also built up my credit score to be around 760-780. I realize I'm in a pretty good financial position and want to capitalize on it. Scouring some of the posts here, a suggestion is to have a goal first then work backwards. My goal is to achieve financial independence and have enough passive income to pursue whatever is of my interest by age 30 (realize it's pretty vague right now, working on that).

I talked with a recent college grad who is pursuing this path also and recommended that I talk with hard money lenders to talk about financing. As of right now, I only have around 3-4k to my name. What I plan to do is:

1. 1. Get a high paying W2 Job post undergrad with my Finance degree from UT
2. 2. Continue to read up as much about REI as possible
3. 3. Invest in RE on the side then eventually quit W2 Job when I have enough capital

My question is that is my plan solid? What I'm doing right now is reading up a lot about REI so that I'll eventually close a deal when the time is right. My main worry is that I don't have enough money right now and closing a deal will be a few years away for me but I do not wanna rush anything until I feel prepared. My other question is what strategy is more aligned with my current goals? 

I guess the crux of this post is that if you were in my position as a 20 year old college sophomore, how would you go about REI?

Thanks for the support!