Fitting a Square Peg into a Round Hole

Case Ronquillo
5 min readNov 12, 2019

Stop believing in “average”

Photo by moren hsu on Unsplash

This post was inspired by John D. Couch’s book, “Rewiring Education.” He offers a compelling approach on how our education system can (and should) change with technology’s help.

I highly recommend you check it out. If you like this post, please reach out to me @ronqnroll on Twitter!

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

I’ve seen my mom learn best by opening up a 500-page technical manual to solve a problem she’s facing at work.

She has always had this tenacity.

While in high school…in spite of having the top grades in her class all four years, my mom was once told by her career counselor to not pursue college, but instead stay in her small town.

Why? As she recalls, “so she could marry someone to take care of her instead.”

She earned her MBA online when she turned 50. At 60, she has just passed 40 years at IBM and was recently recognized by the Society of Hispanic Engineers (SHPE), an organization that has over 10k members, with their highest honor.

She has shown me no one can stop you from learning so long as you have the motivation and grit to do it.

--

--

Case Ronquillo
Case Ronquillo

Written by Case Ronquillo

Balancing being a new dad, loving husband, and a product designer.