There is endless talk of AI-powered robots taking away jobs. But on some college campuses, the companies behind the robots aren't replacing students — they're hiring them, teaching them, and in some cases, rerouting their careers.Five years ago, robotics company Starship rolled out 20 food-delivery robots at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Today, close to 80 bots do 1,000 deliveries a day. Where some students might’ve once delivered for DoorDash and Grubhub, they now work as attendants and technicians for the robot fleet.Scott McKirdy was studying business management at Northern Arizona University when his roommate told him about Starship, a new robotics company coming to campus focused on food delivery. The opportunity proved to be so valuable that it changed the entire course of his education. McKirdy — a self-avowed, hands-on learner — left college after sophomore year to join Starship.“They allowed me to go on launch trips where I launched Oregon State University, Arizona State University, and assist on some of the mapping that goes around campuses as well,” McKirdy said.Starship delivery robots return to a maintenance hub on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis, Oregon.Julia Pickar/MarketplaceStarship and other robotics companies like Robot.com and Austin-based Avride are quietly turning campuses into real-world training grounds. According to Starship, about two-thirds of its student hires are pursuing engineering or computer science degrees.Jacob Olsen is one of them. The nuclear engineering student said his experience working hands-on as a fleet attendant gave him insight for his work with a professor studying robots to detect radiation.“I was basically integrating a robot with a radiation detector and being able to model a room and detect the radiation around it,” Olsen said.Five years ago, Starship product engineer Marcus Hall was majoring in computer and electrical engineering at Oregon State. He was designing an autonomous delivery platform when COVID hit. While classes were paused, Hall noticed a robot technician job for Starship on campus.“This is a perfect fit,” Hall said, “because I’m interested in robotics, I've always worked in that sort of space.”Hall got the job and quickly found that even though class had taught him design principles, he was now seeing how they are stress-tested in the real world.“If you get to build it to full fruition,” Hall said, “you would see your machine driving around, how it interacts with the foliage, with the roads, with the people.”Oregon State robotics professor Ross Hatton said the more hands-on time engineering students get with robots, the better. But he cautioned that learning how an existing robot operates isn't the same as having the knowledge to build one yourself.“It very much speaks to the idea of being someone who has done something versus someone who is doing something,” Hatton said.He also remarked that the base layer of learning for students who might one day build their own robots is still tinkering — in labs, robotics clubs, and internships. Still, he finds it beneficial for students to witness a viable robotics company in action.“It’s still a very young field,” he said, “and so seeing a successful company able to deal with the whole monetization tree — of building out from there — is something that’s really exciting to see.”Starship now operates in more than 60 colleges, where students are learning to fix robots, launch their careers, and apparently, order a lot of French fries.