One of my very close friends felt the same way after getting his EE in undergrad. From his experiences and advice, here's my thoughts:
You need to ground your knowledge in physical reality. In practical terms, if you want to understand circuits, you need to be building circuits. Snag a kit off Amazon if you don't have the materials. I have a couple arduino kits with breadboards, a slew of basic components, motors, etc. Get a book to go with it. I started with "Make Electronics" by Charles Platt.
For videos, I highly recommend RSD Academy. Bob teaches that course without a heavy reliance on a math. I want to say he teaches the intuition (though he would probably say it differently). I find it a perfect match for me. I get the more "hands-on" intuition from RSD Academy and I pair it nicely with the higher level theory I'm working on.
Basically, theory is not enough. This is not just me and my friend talking, either. I had the pleasure of working with a great many engineers at a previous job. The managing engineers all had the opinion that they WISH their new hires came in with practical knowledge of some sort. That company literally set up a college class on their commercial business grounds to teach practical applications of theory.
So, you are not alone. But if you dig in now, not only will you be solidifying those concepts you've learned, but you'll look much more attractive to employers. Do projects, do self-study, and if at all possible get an internship (they are usually paid for EE).
Here's the prompt you need to have a great answer for in any interview:
"Tell us about your engineering experience."
First of all I appreciate the comprehensive guide, I feel the electronics part is a bit intimidating for someone with 0 experience handling wires before, would you say this kit from Amazon has what’s needed? Thanks
I get adds for This thing literally constantly because I bought a soldering iron once and this kit goes on sale 10x a year.
I bought an arduino "starter-kit" look - similar to this:
Is there any way that I can use these sensors and stuff on a raspberry? (if the raspberry have the breadboard-extension) Or do I have to get some kind of kit for the raspberry itself?
I don't know much about power and electricity so please explain it like I'm stupid a.f
If you stick arduino into amazon you should get a handful of kits come up. This one for example comes with a stepper motor and a servo motor which are both heavily used in robotics so is probably a good start
For $30 bucks it’s hard to go wrong with this one if you’re just starting: www.amazon.com/ELEGOO-Project-Tutorial-Controller-Projects/dp/B01D8KOZF4
Has more stuff than you could use in a year of learning projects. Highly rated. Has a 24 lesson getting started CD. I’ve never had a problem with stuff from Elegoo. There are cheaper kits by them also.
Ok I wasn’t sure about the book, they can get really complex, fast but If it’s relatively basic you should be set.
There’s plenty of YouTube tutorials available for arduino, and there’s some really simple projects and sample codes you can find online. The basic kit is on amazon for less than $40 US. I’d personally find it easier to learn while applying it to an actual problem rather than in a vacuum but that’s just me.
Computer science might be the exception, but in general it’s better to build up rather than out. IE it’s better to spend 5 or 6 years getting BS+MS than 5 or 6 years for 2 bachelors. It really depends on what you want to do though, computer science very well could be worth it.
For computers, you’ll probably have access to a school computer lab for any complicated programs so you could survive without a big computer for home. Though for CS, you’ll probably want to be able to code from home. I have a dell Inspiron with an i7 processor from 2017 and it’s been fine from a technical standpoint as long as I use it often(otherwise it gets slow). I got it on sale from amazon when I graduated high school for around $700-$800. The issue is that it’s too large and heavy to take to class on a regular basis. Most of my friends have MacBooks but I don’t recommend them for engineering since they can’t run a lot of programs. If you’re going to be doing coding I’d really just make sure you get something with a nicer processor(i7 or equivalent), and a good amount of ram. I’m sure there’s threads on this sub with computer nerds that know more than me haha.
Ask the prof if you can use the cheaper version offered in Dickrell's sections of EGN2020C. https://www.amazon.com/ELEGOO-Project-Tutorial-Controller-Projects/dp/B01D8KOZF4
This is pretty cheap and it has a lot of extras for when you want to start getting in to controllers -
https://www.amazon.com/ELEGOO-Project-Tutorial-Controller-Projects/dp/B01D8KOZF4?ref_=ast_sto_dp
I've used and can recommend this 35 dollar arduino starter kit.