I'm about to end my masters and hopefully I'll publish something regarding my masters thesis, however I feel like even in the field I'm doing research in I know so little still. I couldn't imagine publishing something meaningful before really
i think in the US it is unfairly/fairly expected for students to be knowledgable about their proposed area of study for getting accepted to "top" PhD programs
@Sanjana i would think through letters of recommendation from research advisors in the topic of interest (in an ideal case), through publications in the field of interest, and through writing about it in the statement of purpose you submit
but i don't think most students have the privillage of knowing much less researching their interested field of study
and then the specifics vary between universities, I just find it really weird that the US expects anyone to commit to a PhD after just a Bachelor's degree (in which they usually seem to learn less than over here, too...)
and then, yeah, you're confusingly expected to know what you'd like to spend your life studying and already have experience in doing that :D
im not really sure why american universities outrank non-american universities on these "top universities list" for undergraduate education. as ACM mentions we seem to learn much less here (from university at least) than anywhere in europe
