When I was a little kid, I rented out Apollo 13 almost religiously. Kept watching it, admired the guys in mission control (and the astronauts too, of course).

A little later, in April, I sat in mission control and helped launch a spaceship to the ISS.

Along the way, I realized:

Engineering in the real world is maybe 30% calculations and typical "sciency" work, the other 70% is documentation and communicating to people. The day-to-day in the aerospace industry is way different than the way things are taught at school (from an EE perspective). It's impressive to me how much design happens in everyday back-and-forth conversations, versus the common image of "one guy, hard at work, cranking out equations at his desk".

Being smart isn't enough sometimes -- you need to have discipline as well, and even then, there is a considerable amount of luck in the mix. Getting the timing for a presentation, or a forcing a decision at the right time, can make a huge difference in the success of a program. You kind of have to check all three boxes to max out your success counter: smarts, determination, and luck.