Especially in STEM, to stay good, you will have to commit yourself to lifelong learning. (For many of us, this is actually half of the fun!) This will be an easier task, if you have a solid foundation of core principles. University is offering you a prebuilt environment to build that solid foundation. But nowadays, they are not an exclusive source of wisdom, as you know. Depending on what kind of learner you are, you can leverage the fact, that we all have access to the best learning material out there, worldwide. That's a singularity in the history of education and we are the first generation that can profit from it. For me, this is one of the last sparks of hope in the current bullshittification of the internet.

EDIT: change "softeware engineering" to "STEM"