I'll bet you a nickel that grad student didn't learn about complex multi threaded behavior in low level C. His challenge was to take a high level concept and express it in a resource constrained environment.

Of course there is a need for freestanding C. But for every one of him there are a hundred developers using c++ or java or javascript. They may not appreciate the power of working in such high level languages, but the vast majority of developers work in HLLs.