I never really "got" control theory until about 10 years after graduation.

I was working as an SW Engr and taking a set of courses towards a Mechatronics certificate (my employer did a lot of motion control work) and I had to basically take updated versions of the same classes. The lab instructor was an about-to-retire engineer from Schunk, and he did an amazing job of explaining what the theory meant in terms of real-world behavior. That's when it all finally sunk in and I could look at the math and "see" how a mechanism would respond.