C is not a mandatory subject in first year of CS where you live? At least it used to be where I live, pretty universally (although at that time our universities were in the middle of a Pascal-to-C transition, so as to speak).
The United States? No, there are no mandatory subjects for majors.
My CS curriculum didn't have any "learn this language" classes, you were just expected to know the language that the class was taught in, with the exception of one of the classes that spent some time reviewing OCaml concepts.
Mostly it was C/C++ and Python for the scientific/numeric classes.
We started with a semester of ML (to make sure nobody has prior experience) followed a semester with some quick assembly, some quick C, and a lot of Java. After that you are just expected to know whatever language the course requires
My alma mater had zero language courses. We were expected to learn enough of whatever languages were necessary for concepts covered in the course. Intro courses used Scheme and Java. C ended up being used in later courses after the intro ones, e.g. operating systems.
