>>13954665do whatever you want, but you have to be into it or waste a ton of energy pretending you are
At my R1 university, the profs essentially expected us to maintain a 3.8+ and spend at least 15 hours a week on research with them for a 2+ year stint in the same lab. People who let their grades fall, had jobs, or were in a bunch of extracurriculars were let go and kind of looked down upon. If your prof believed you were capable and excited, they hyped you up in general and to other professors so you were chilling in the department as a whole. My advice is to be quiet about your aspirations for theoretical research unless there are profs who will help you progress with that at your university. The cult that academia is, profs are 100% more inclined to help and put their energy into students who will sort of carry on their legacy and go into their field of interest. (Not all but that's definitely a trend). It shouldn't box you in too much for grad school, I mean think about how many people do 0 research in undergrad, or apply to various grad programs coming from a completely different undergrad program like astro, math, etc.
