I remember feeling the same thing in college... I expected CS to be a vocational program that would teach me how to write the applications I used on Windows every day. By Senior year, when not a single "real world" application was written, I finally realized it was all about teaching good theory and practice, and the practical stuff I'd need to pick up on my own.
Several students in my campus ACM chapter realized this and worked to make our meetings fill in some of the gaps. We had weekly meetings and covered things that attendees could get started using immediately. Code-alongs were encouraged. Popular topics had followup meetings. I don't even know how much time we spent playing with POV-Ray.
The lightning talks meeting was also really popular; one guy showed how to use Blender in five minutes, someone else talked about a darknet he had written, and another student used it to distribute Google Wave invites she had from her summer internship.
