The only group under low pressure, free to do anything they want in Academia are tenured profs who have established themselves well or grad students who don’t c

The only group under low pressure, free to do anything they want in Academia are tenured profs who have established themselves well or grad students who don’t care at all about remaining in Academia (and presumably have NSF fellowship or similar so that they don’t need to listen to their advisor either). Everyone else needs to grind, profs without tenure are arguably under the highest pressure, PhDs who want to stay in academia have high pressure etc. If your prof is tenured but not established and is struggling for grant money, even he is under high pressure to publish and win grants, something I learnt the hard way. The grant acceptance rate is what, like 20% these days. My 2 cents, you will be more likely to encounter creative coders who are passionate about a field in the right industry team than Academia. Unfortunately getting into the right industry team is also a grind, and you likely won’t get there right out of undergrad, but within 10 years, if you put effort and grind, you can get there. I think it’s better odds and more fun than going to academia, but your mileage may vary.