You're not doing anything wrong, other than that a degree in aviation is not worth much. A degree in something you can fall back on would be better, but, I must admit, I had nothing when I was 17.

Doing the CFI gig and experiencing a wide variety of what aviation has to offer will give you something the academy "get there now" crowd is gonna miss out on.

If you want to work at UPS, you'd best get tight with a UPS pilot and see what worked for them and see what's working these days. It's a very tight market. You might be well served to expand your expectations as the golden child of today might not be worth giving it all up for in ten years. Could be NWA or United or SWA would be a better shot for you.

It's more about you getting qualified and then going to whoever pays attention. The two that I wanted to work for never gave me a shot but I'll say it was a smart move for me to look beyond that.