I didn't get back to work on my BA for about 5 years. I then worked on my masters. After a misunderstanding with my mentor over my thesis, I put it all aside and never finished it.
I had completed all the course requirements, and turned in my thesis. Unfortunately I got stuck with a mentor who had never worked with a graduate student before. He gave me bad info about how to complete my thesis. First he accepted it, then 3 months later said it had to be longer. I rewrote it all and turned it in. He returned it and said I needed to rewrite the introduction, to include things that had nothing to do with the subject matter I was writing on. It was a history paper. I consulted with a couple friends who had expertise (one a doctorate in history, another a masters in Archaeology), and they said the guy was wrong.
So after getting the runaround for several months from him and the school, I got ticked off and walked away. That was almost 20 years ago. I'm 61 now and retired. I never needed a degree for my job. I did it to prove to myself that I could. Everything I learned from the experience, I could have learned on my own. I don't look upon it as a total waste though, because I did enjoy the classroom experience. I've been retired for almost 5 years now, and have no desire to take any more college courses. Good luck though in whatever you decide to do.
I could have learned everything I needed to know about EE in a two year associate’s program. At least half of my undergraduate training was worthless, or worse. (I suspect that four year courses have more of this than two year courses.) It was actually annoying because a lot of professors were either incompetent (at least pedigogically) or indifferent and a lot of the work was sloughed off on poorly trained TAs. Really a scandal.
Night graduate classes were where my professor hired me for my current job, so not a total waste. I did learn a little bit and it sort of opened my eyes. But my professor got me started on more interesting work, essentially working in applied physics and mathematics, which I learned, like you, otj.
I still think academic physics (which I only took as an undergraduate) was the most competently taught.