To a computer scientist, programming is merely a tool to help bring their computer science ideas to life. Writing a bunch of APIs and calling them will only take you so far. After a certain point, theory will prevail because math (computer science is applied math) is the truth. Also the "computer programming" major is called Infoscience majors at the top engineering schools, those students are laughed at, you don't have to be smart to grind through those classes ie you don't build mental toughness towards theories.