I have read this topic so far with alot of interest.
The majority of undergraduate/graduate engineers seem to be a strange breed to me.
I am a graduate myself and agree with Genghis that hands on experience should be an essential counterpart to academic studies but in my experience this is not a widely held point of view, especially amongst those currently studying engineering at university.
At the moment the gliding club in my university is doing a major overhaul of a wooden glider. We have a number of engineering students on the members books (worse a few are aeronautical engineering students!) but none of them have expressed the slightest interest in getting involved with working on a real aircraft.