Why? Are you wanting somebody to validate your own self-flagellation?
As @Gumbymom says, what’s done is done, and you are where you are. Despite the critics, most posters on CC actually want to be helpful, and berating somebody for past choices is not helpful.
As Bette Bao Lord wrote, “what is life but foolish and imperfect choices?”. Most people make the best decision they are able to make for who they are / where they are in their life. Then-you did the best then-you could. You like what now-you can do more, which is fine, but no reason to beat up on then-you.
And, we don’t know that those years were “for nothing”. You have learned from your courses (and apparently done well enough to get offers to UCs), and a lot (most? all?) of those credits will transfer towards your degree. Your life experiences along the way have brought you to the point where you are ready to move past whatever obstacles were keeping you from moving forward. And that is definitely not nothing.