I would argue that you don’t need to learn string theory as it currently does not predict anything we can realistically observe (as you need energies that occurred only at the big bang). If string theory is correct we could observe a “supersymmetric” twin of all known particles, however we haven’t seen these, and they could exist even if string theory is false.

String theory aims to explain all physics as manifestations of a mathematical concept best understood as a vibrating string.

Initially, the hope was that string theory could predict the particle masses we observe, but that hasn’t worked as it turns out there were many different predictions possible. String theory has also struggled to develop a version of the theory that does not contradict known properties of our actual universe.

Loop quantum gravity is not equivalent to string theory, except that it also tries to unify gravity and quantum physics.

As things stand, string theory is not falsifiable, while that is the case, you could argue it does not count as physics.

But, by multiple accounts, it is interesting math, which can be worth doing for its own sake, and it’s happened often enough that interesting math turned out to be useful somewhere. Just not for explaining physics.