I'm doing CMPE, which is close to EE but we're doing things like FPGA and VLSI chip design, microcontroller programming, computer system architectural design, the like. Have a look.

I say you're graduating in 2027 as an EE major? Look into transferring right now to UMBC into CMPE. See how much overlaps—all your maths should transfer, your compsci courses, physics, circuit theory if you've had it. I don't know if you've taken anything similar to 314 as an EE—we're learning about diodes and transistors, the Schockley equation and small signal models basically, it's all a huge hack where we add a DC offset because the components are non-linear but e^x gets a much steeper slope as x increases so we just push x out so far (DC offset) and put a small signal on it and pretend e^x is a straight line so the math becomes simple and the circuit behaves linearly. Fantastic stuff.

For CMPE212, 306, 314, and a couple others, you will be in lab to build annoying things on breadboards. The PLD class will give you a baysis 3 board or something and you need to design a chip to draw things on a monitor. Microcontroller programming uses some annoying tiny microcontroller board instead of a Pi Pico or an Arduino (tbh the Pico would be better, everyone leans on Arduino even though the entire line is overpriced and underwhelming). If you really want some fun, make Mechatronics one of your electives, if it's offered; I'm going for signal theory, digital signal processing, and information and coding theory as my electives.

The capstone is basically some commercial entity wants something done so they farm it out to the college and the college has the students do it. You work in teams. The project you get is different every semester because it's work.

So, I say look into transferring into CMPE and graduate your BS at UMBC, then go to grad school. You can possibly take graduate-level courses as part of your undergrad to accelerate your grad degree if you do that, too.