I want to soak in as much info as possible, every step of the way

Have to plant those seeds to let the grow.

If you want to go out on your own, use that 4,000 as seed money, but It goes fast if you don’t sell a home.The most important thing is to invest in your self and be patient.

I am here to soak up all the knowledge you great people can lend and hope I can be as successful in this as most of you are.

Instead I slowly planted seeds that allowed me to bring up REI without it sounding so scary.

Using your seed capital as a starting point, I would start with asking "do I want to be an active or passive investing AND what is the goal here or what does success look like? 

If you're looking for cash-flowing markets with some appreciation, there're 20 cities in the USA that has > 1.0 rent/value ratio by default.I put my seeds in multiple cities for cash flow and one in highly appreciativemarket.

If he goes to work at an investment firm and someone else worth tens of millions or more is willing to (kiss the note) on a deal because they believe in him then he could possibly get further/faster than working a trade.Trades can provide a good income but if he loves real estate than working at an investment firm with many years of experience to soak in, learn from, and absorb could make a lot of sense.

I chose to go with REI because I wanted to plant the seeds (properties) and let them grow (appreciation) so I can reap the benefits sooner rather than waiting to pay off my student debt.

A great take-way here is you dug in and saved your pennies hard early on - you did not start RE with nothing - and then once you had enough seed, took it as hard as you could.What a great success story.