Turns out the reply in my thread telling me the best way to combat not caring about Linux is to care about Linux was absolutely correct.
I picked up a laptop, installed Linux Mint Cinnamon, and I’m already obsessed. I haven’t had this much fun with a PC in a long time and it’s just a cheapo Dell Inspiron 3520.
Office doesn’t have native Linux binaries. You either have to use a VM or Wine. You’ll find most people recommend a VM. There are Office web apps, but they’re not as robust as the Windows native offerings. Microsoft doesn’t really want to offer Office on Linux. Stick with Windows for the remainder of your education. Once you’ve finished, you can sink time into learning Linux.