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I got an ugrad in CS, but from a non-engr-focused school, and then got into one of the top grad schools. I quickly realized I had neither the mathematical pedigree for CS theory, nor anything resembling experience designing OS and microprocessor internals for systems, that the MIT, CMU, and Berkeley students did. (my OS class was literally a history course!) Yet I now have a PhD and a Best Paper award. The key: specialize. Study a sub-discipline so deeply that you know every paper's references' references. the reference set will collapse to a strongly-connected graph. jettison weak connections to get a clear picture, and, really, a narrative of the field, as in a survey paper. just naturally, you'll start to be able to quote author affiliations, and their publication list in time-order. once you do that, you'll find yourself hearing/reading comments, and immediately saying: oh, shut up, that has been done! that sounds like A, said by X, and B, said by Y, and even a bit like C, said by Z. and, then, voila, you'll see that no one has said D yet, even tho it is just obviously a variant on C, or whatever. and then you write it/prove it/code it. then you publish it. and all of a sudden, even though you've (say) never lexed or parsed or emitted or reduced... you start seeing yourself in other people's references as "D said by You". Then you win. |