In academia, the intermediate processes are not rewarded. Perhaps this is not a problem for a mature researcher, but it is indeed a problem for a graduate student. I really want to be a psychologist, and I really love psychology. I need to survive. My rescue is programming.
Programming is fun.
If I bring programming and psychology together, I may be able to make them support each other. Although I have been a programmer for more than half of my life, I really did not have enough professionalism. So I took courses such as Data Structures and Software Engineering. I also took some higher level courses such as Computational Linguistics. To be able to implement your theory is important.