I think you may be pleasantly surprised by the 'real' world. There are management types which actually possess a reasonable amount of clue. As for your programming classes, and classes in general, I would expect some degree of resistance to addressing off topic material. The purpose of a C++ class is to teach C++, so from a learning standpoint using the 'non optimal' tool isn't much of an issue since the goal is to learn C++ and not to program a CGI calandar handler application.

If you were in a Perl class you might be able to get away with a bit of Inline::C though...

Also, when you interview you can get a feel for the general clueness of your potential supervisor and also a feel for the culture where you are applying, so you can make the decision with that information properly factored in. In the current job market though, one may need to compromise on the culture a bit, but I would be reluctant to hire on into a clue-free environment in any case.

You may also consider inertia when you are interviewing potential employers. For example, if all of their current production code is in one particular language, that will be unlikely to change in the near future, whereas, a company with different languages in use for different purposes, or in different areas, will probably be easier to use the most favored tool for any given project.