Perhaps the point was, learning C is more of an eye opener than an actual skill.

You're going to have to try hard to actually program something in C in the majority of jobs. On the other hand, you'll have to try hard to avoid any C-Based languages.

Of course, if someone new to programming asked me "shall i learn JS or C?", I would recommend JS.

However, after a few years.. give C a try. Make a throw-away "ls" or something.