In my time as a CS student, I've never needed to use C nor understand its syntax to get through my classes. I think you're confusing the necessity of learning C

In my time as a CS student, I've never needed to use C nor understand its syntax to get through my classes. I think you're confusing the necessity of learning C with understanding how a computer works, and the two are not the same. I think the most useful class I took that explained this (in my sophomore year) was a class on digital logic and micro-architecture. Just about every school I know teaches some class like this early on in your education (at least teaching the basics -- gates, latches, flip-flops, adders, etc.) In mine, it even carried up through some basic assembly code. This class gave me enough to know how computers are working at a fundamental level to be able to use that to my advantage when implementing projects. Lastly -- you're getting a CS degree, not a programming degree from a vocational school. Does everyone who researches... quantum computing, or natural language processing, or graph theory have to know and communicate in C? I think there are other pursuits beyond programming that you get from a CS degree, and to say it's necessary to learn C pivots your school closer to a vocational school. Not that that's bad -- it's just different than what you signed up for.