> That's great, but please don't overlook all that you can learn from people that may not seem so smart.
The really, really important part here is: SEEM not so smart, and accordingly, SEEM oh-so-smart
"Smart" is pretty difficult to quantify, let alone compare... just to play devil's advocate here: a lot of the oh-so-smart people might have "nothing" but a decade of experience more than you and an ability to be extrovert about what they do and they might be one of only a handful of people in that field, so might just be big fish in an actually small pond. And have you ever talked to PhD candidates about what is really going on in scientific publishing?
So, question and look at how these oh-so-smart people do things, see their up- but also, especially, their downsides as good and fair as possible. That way you will learn something about people and about yourself.
The really, really important part here is: SEEM not so smart, and accordingly, SEEM oh-so-smart
"Smart" is pretty difficult to quantify, let alone compare... just to play devil's advocate here: a lot of the oh-so-smart people might have "nothing" but a decade of experience more than you and an ability to be extrovert about what they do and they might be one of only a handful of people in that field, so might just be big fish in an actually small pond. And have you ever talked to PhD candidates about what is really going on in scientific publishing?
So, question and look at how these oh-so-smart people do things, see their up- but also, especially, their downsides as good and fair as possible. That way you will learn something about people and about yourself.