@Doncic42 I hope lots of young people read this thread, but I doubt many will. This thread brings up many important things to learn from. If you are able to reframe your thinking just a little bit, there’s a good chance that you can move away from regret and toward a growth mindset. Being able to let go of regret, leave it behind, can be very liberating.
You got a golden ticket, you got to go to Yale. And while the experience fell short of your expectations, your fantasies, your dreams, you actually finished that four year degree. Congratulations. You persevered and now have a nice solid stone foundation to build your adult life on. Noone can take it away from you ever. It can’t be reposessed. For the rest of your life that foundation gives you the instant credibility that is one of the reasons many want the same golden ticket. You’ve learned the disappointing fact that “Yale isn’t everything.” But, you know that because you went to Yale. (Sort of like the people who say “money isn’t everything” are often people with a lot of money).
You also learned that a degree from Yale (or anywhere really) is no guarantee that you will have meaningful job skills or that you won’t have to struggle to build a set of marketable skills needed to build a career that you enjoy enough to be sustainable. That’s a big pill to swallow. It is a painful realization. But, you have that foundation and instant credibility and obviously a strong enough brain to take that to gradually build the skills toward a career. This is a lifelong process. It can be an uphill struggle at times, progress can seem slow at points then surge at others. Instant success is very rare. Life is messy, and wonderful all at the same time. It doesn’t hit dream or fantasy levels very often, but when it does it can be amazing.
Let go of regrets. The past is the past. The last five years have been hard. Okay. Keep moving forward, the next five don’t have to be. Don’t blame Yale, appreciate it for what it is, even with its faults.