I was also CS undergrad. I see it more as a choice between industry or academia. Junior year i also had to make that decision. For industry, that then meant ge

I was also CS undergrad. I see it more as a choice between industry or academia. Junior year i also had to make that decision. For industry, that then meant getting into internships, which then translated into job offers. You needed a minimum level of grades, say, 3.0, and needed to have classes on your transcript that looked more like industry software engineering, say, operating systems, databases, design. Companies cared more about clubs, extracurriculars, side projects, and of course you needed to be able to pass your interview questions. While, if i was going for grad school instead, then i'd need a 4.0, start taking grad school classes, start talking with professors, try to get a job as a research assistant, try to find a professor that i could latch onto and start working with. And that was a path i had considered at some point, when i really did enjoy taking hard classes, going in deep, and pushing the edges of my learning.