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Ask HN: When can one be considered technical?
I've really been struggling with having confidence in my own technical skills, and it paralyzes me.
I recieved my undergraduate degree in Cognitive Science 2 years ago, and had no practical skills in math or programming. I taught myself programming casually and managed to gain acceptance to a dual master's in CS and Computational Biology. I taught myself the math necessary for ML, and worked on some big software projects, and now I'm in the final stretch working on my master's thesis in neuroscience inspired ML architectures, but I feel so scared to work and that my advisor and my peers will find out I'm some sort of charlatan. I just don't feel I'm technical, and I don't know what to do.
- greenyoda 8y agoYou worked on some big software projects - that sounds technical to me. What kinds of skills do you think you're lacking?
- hsikka 8y agoI don't have solid mental models about computer architecture and abstractions, and I always feel like I'm catching up on the math that's being employed in a lot of theoretical CS and ML.