How do non-software engineers feel upon reflection, about their degrees?

Despite that I've found my schooling has really helped me along the way. Apart from the obvious (reading, writing, arithmetic). I took accountancy as a subject. When I started working for myself having that accounting knowledge was really helpful.

Physics slso played a role in life just after school. I spent some time in a "trade" type job (fire fighting) and high school physics (conduction, electricity etc) were all practical tools.

High school math helped with logic (that came in handy) and even algebra and formulas are good background and applicable to programing (and made it easier to learn.)

In hindsight I credit my English teachers with my communication skills- I have written text books and run training classes.

Its not like I "learned nothing since school" and its not like I was a model student at school, but I picked up skills when I wasn't looking.

As for Geography - well I don't know that that has affected my career, but it certainly gets the kids eyes rolling when I pontificate on rock types and magma intrusions. :)

It should be noted that Arduinos came about to greatly lower the cost of teaching embedded systems engineering. It really took off from there.

I think of bachelors degrees, or undergraduate degrees and diploma’s as being like little samplers. There is advantages to getting a degree, like showing you can finish something you started, and I definitely think you do learn some skills, but I wouldn’t expect to gain mastery of a subject from just doing a degree. A degree might provide a good foundation, but you really have to build on it, either by doing more study, or working in a relevant industry that provides opportunities for growth, rather than just sitting there with your degree that will most definitely become outdated if you fail to keep up with the pace of change. Everything changes, even stuff that was considered true facts on the nature of the universe have been revised over time. (Not sure this was a good example since we know shit all about the universe actually.)

I’m currently completing my 5th and 6th degree’s at the moment (one is my second masters degree) I don’t feel very smart, and sometimes I don’t feel like the knowledge I’ve gained is that useful, except what I’ve noticed is that I listen more carefully to what other people say now, especially when they’re spouting their opinions on hot topics and often I just find myself noticing that people don’t actually know that they’re actually quite uneducated. In fact, I’d say the danger of undergraduate degree’s is that people think they’re educated by having a degree, and it’s great that they do have a degree, but there’s a lot more knowledge they don’t have, they just don’t know that they don’t know.

After doing my numerous degree’s, what I’ve learned for certain is that I could spend my whole life studying and I’ll never know everything there is to know, I find it humbling, but equally, my attitude every day is that I’m probably going to learn something new and I’m open to that. I guess some people might call that a growth mindset or something. I think others might just think I am a weirdo.