Aerospace engineer here (now doing software stuff). Around the time I left my alma mater was doing a good job shifting to more courses that involved actually building hardware. Their term for it was DBT for "design, build, test."

It's expensive though. A lot of times students have to go fundraise to pay for their projects. My annual donation to the university is now earmarked specifically for supplies for a couple of undergrad DBT courses.

I'd encourage you to get back in touch with your old department and give them your above feedback, I'm sure they'd love to hear from you.