
Ask HN: When can one be considered technical? - hsikka
I&#x27;ve really been struggling with having confidence in my own technical skills, and it paralyzes me.<p>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&#x27;s in CS and Computational Biology. I taught myself the math necessary for ML, and worked on some big software projects, and now I&#x27;m in the final stretch working on my master&#x27;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&#x27;m some sort of charlatan. I just don&#x27;t feel I&#x27;m technical, and I don&#x27;t know what to do.
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greenyoda
You worked on some big software projects - that sounds technical to me.

What kinds of skills do you think you're lacking?

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hsikka
I 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.

