Programming is legitimate and necessary academic endeavour.
Always remember, however, that there’s usually a simpler and better way to do something than the first way that pops into your head.
There's ways to amuse yourself while doing things and thats how I look at efficency.
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.
People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.