Are the necessary 'real life' skills learnt after the school days?

Yes, very much so. Unless a school project is hands on, however no matter how much book knowledge one has, it's seems like to me anyway, nothing learned is learned best, unless it's hands on skill, because you get the feel for what your learning, instead of just trying to imagine it, learning from a book, even though I have learned a lot from books, so by no means am I saying, one can't book learn, I also think highly of book learning.

You can say, because we all learn throughout the life ,everyday we learn something new. Yes for sure after the school days we start thinking about are future life like higher studies interesting field, than earning opportunities , fulfill your needs, family needs this is called real life which we all learn through books, prepare our imagination.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.