The thing is in this industry, a lot of the people at the top of the food chain or general mythos is that there are a lot who didn't graduate and still did fine

The thing is in this industry, a lot of the people at the top of the food chain or general mythos is that there are a lot who didn't graduate and still did fine (Gates, Zuckerberg, Jobs). It's also what you make of it. Sure your degree may give you an easier entry to robotics, but it doesn't mean you need one to get in. It's just the most standard way of getting in, but there are other ways of getting in. Also, 4 years is still a lot of time not working on 'real projects' if your career is 20-30 years. Because of coding bootcamps and other stuff, we're already seeing less people going to 4 year programs and more doing 2-4 semester intensive courses. At least in the software industry, I think it's going to be like apprenticeships in the future. Apparently it's more common in Europe like Germany. Shopify's CEO (Tobias) did some sort of apprenticeship program like that.