And that's where you have this divide of people who have an EE degree but can't assemble their own designs to save their lives, and those with just a technical

And that's where you have this divide of people who have an EE degree but can't assemble their own designs to save their lives, and those with just a technical background who may struggle to design and understand their own circuits, but who can build them to expert level standards. There are plenty in the middle who can do both - and more than a few of them with such knowledge have never take a college or university course in their life. You see the same thing with software engineering sometimes - the CompSci graduate who can't code their way out of a wet paper bag even if given a github of fizzbuzz, versus the person who never went to college yet makes 6-figs in SV hacking on code (yet doesn't have the "book understanding" of data structures or algorithms). ...and tons of people in between those who can combine both. Slap 'em together with similar people in the trades - well, you'll find yourself a myriad of people at all levels and understanding of "mechatronics" and/or robotics and such. It is quite likely that your roommate could learn what you learned - and you could (or have) learned what he knew. It ultimately all depends on having the motivation and desire to pursue it. Where you might have the advantage is that you could probably pick up his skills from online resources and simple practice projects or whatnot. He would probably struggle to do the same, without actually going into debt and attending some kind of university course(s). Some of it can be approximated with self-study and some online MOOC training, but not all of it, unfortunately - and he wouldn't have the "piece of paper" at the end.