Here is the full context:
When Dharma Kumar visited Calcutta and came with me to Ranajitda’s addas, she expressed astonishment at the range of issues we managed to discuss in our evening gatherings. Even now, I feel that as academic discussions go, it would be hard to match those in the small unassuming apartment in Panditiya Road in the mid 1950s.
How do you paraphrase the marked sentence? I know what "as sb/sth goes" means, but still the overall meaning of the sentence is confusing for me. Would you help me to get the idea of the sentence? Thank You. the reference: At 23, Amartya Sen finished the work for his PhD in one year and then set up an economics department