Being a theory student doesn't mean trading your computer for a
pencil. Much of our work involves both proofs and
programming. Sometimes building systems. Sometimes doing
experiments to determine what is true. Sometimes required to find
out if a solution is really clean and efficient.
[In fact many great programmers from CMU were theory people...
Jim Aspnes, now at yale, Guy Jacobson, David Applegate, now at
ATT Labs...]