Former ITT Tech Spokeswoman has an Interesting Job

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by sanantone, Sep 18, 2016.

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  1. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I was on a celebrity gossip site and came across an entry on a former ITT Tech Student. She graduated in 2005 with an associate's in web development and 2007 with a bachelor's in information security and starred in several commercials from 2008 to 2011. By 2012, she was working in the adult film industry. I won't link to the article with video evidence because it's inappropriate. Even though you don't normally expect someone with a computer-related degree to become that desperate, to be fair, I'm sure there are people in this industry who attended better colleges. I just thought this story was interesting considering the news surrounding ITT Tech's closure. I suspect that she was living off of her salary from being in these commercials. When the commercial gigs stopped, she had to find another source of income.
     
  2. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Then her school could legitimately list her as an "employed grad" for its financial aid stats. :smile:

    What was it Calvin Coolidge said? Ah yes, "All work is ennobling and all workers are ennobled.” :question: :question:

    J.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 18, 2016
  3. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Some people work in that industry because they like it. You're making a lot of assumptions about someone you don't know.
     
  4. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Sure. She racked up tens of thousands of dollars in debt and spent four years in school to work as a porn star when she has (or had) a husband and child. I heard she has a regular job now, so it doesn't seem like she wanted to make a career out of it.
     
  5. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Did she previously state that she racked up tens of thousands of dollars in debt? If she didn't then, yet again, that's quite an assumption about someone you don't know.

    Perhaps she had ample transfer credits. Perhaps she utilized tuition assistance from a previous employer. Maybe she had 50% off of her tuition because she signed up before the little clock on the website ticked down to "zero" on its tuition extravaganza sale.

    Perhaps the commercials wiped out her debt. Maybe her spouse paid for the schooling. There are a lot of possibilities.

    It's also a bit ignorant to assume she was just "that desperate." She could have been making $50k per year in a computer related job and the porn work offered her more money and more time with her family. I have a great job but if I had the opportunity to earn about $20k more with about half the hours I'd seriously consider it.

    It isn't as if adult films, exotic dancing etc are low wage jobs. Show me someone above college age delivering pizzas and I'll hear your label of "desperate." Show me someone who likely makes twice my salary and there just may well be more to the story.
     
  6. FTFaculty

    FTFaculty Well-Known Member

    Now I have this image of Neuhaus rocking the porn industry as an upcoming star. And it's not a pretty image!
     
  7. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Then, how come you aren't working in the adult film industry? You seem to equate desperation with taking a job that is low-paying. Despite the high pay, the substance abuse rates in the sex trades tend to be very high due to the fact that these are often jobs people don't want to do. Some people like working in adult films; but, even with required testing, there are occasionally waves of actors contracting HIV. There is also a very high risk of contracting herpes, and almost no one uses protection for oral sex scenes.
     
  8. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

  9. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    No one would ever pay to see me in any state of undress.

    And yet, none of this has anything to do with ITT Tech. So I stand by my earlier assertion that it is incredibly ignorant to try to say that a person chose to enter adult films because she was incredibly desperate and more ignorant still to conclude that such desperation arose, in whole or in part, from the school where she recieved her education.

    ITT Tech degrees, at one point, weren't cursed. They used to land decent entry to mid level jobs for their graduates. We still have a few floating around at my company. Even today I'm sure that an ITT grad with a decent work history and any certifications that are required or preferred in their sector they would still find decent jobs.

    Did she get into adult films out of desperation? Maybe. But we still don't know what caused that desperation. She mig also have chosen the path because she enjoyed it, or because she had friends working in that industry, or because she was pressured by a spouse or partner. She could have been tricked into it. There are myriad reasons why she could have gotten into that line of work.

    What you did was choose the easiest narrative that fit your purpose by drawing a sweeping conclusion from very, very little information. When others point out that we simply cannot know whether your speculations have any basis in reality you begin hurling non sequiturs.

    All Steve said was that some people like working in adult films. All I said was that her reasons for choosing it maybe, and likely, had absolutely nothing to do with her education from ITT tech. Nor does either position diminish in cogency because the arguers don't work in adult films. You speculated as to her debt load, her level of desperation and pretty much every other intimate detail of her life insofar as those speculations supported your conclusion.
     
  10. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    By the way, do you have a reliable source for this information? Because when I google "ITT Spokeswoman" I find either references to the school's actual spokeswoman, Nicole Elam, who is not a graduate of ITT Tech, or this thread.

    I did find one blog making this allegation. It has a Nigerian domain extension so, crazy reliable right there.

    If I go to YouTube and look for "woman in ITT Tech commercials" the first one to come up is a woman named Raechel Pendleton. Who, according to her LinkedIn profile, used her ITT Tech associate's degree to bounce from McDonalds to Sprint, where she is currently employed as a Product Development Engineer.

    I also found one for Tiffany Edwards (now Deardorff) who went from a recruiting manager, the job she mentions in the commercial, to an Account Manager at the same company again, according to her LinkedIn profile.

    So frankly, I'm going to go out on a limb here and just straight up call BS on this entire thread. I think that you needed to say something that was a clear bash of ITT Tech. And hey, you had plenty to go on. Instead you decided to take the James Frey route because it allowed you to act all high and mighty with woeful tales of substance abuse and oppression.

    The only positive outcome from this thread seems to be that you didn't name anyone in particular and get everyone tangled up in your libel.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 21, 2016
  11. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Because a blog at Wordpress.com, hey, that's legit.
     
  12. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Oh, wow. You're really embarrassing yourself with these wild allegations. If you really wanted the link to the article and video, you could have asked me to PM it to you. I'm pretty sure it is against the rules of the forum to post porn. Let's use some common sense. I even have her first and last name, but I will not post it publicly. What's funny is that a person on another forum easily found the article, but the members of the other forum tend to be more advanced in things like that. I should get an apology for your baseless attack against me, but you aren't going to give it, and I don't care for it. It's a shame that Steve injected himself into the baseless, personal attack. I don't see why this thread would get anyone so angry, but you two just made yourselves look foolish.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 21, 2016
  13. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I'm not angry at all. I'm flummoxed that a doctoral candidate could be so sloppy and draw so many definitive conclusions from so little information. I'm also incredibly disappointed that a fellow substance abuse counselor would basically victimize a stranger just to further your narrative.

    If you want an apology, I'll go this far...

    This is by far your sorriest display.

    As for making myself look foolish, well, it wouldn't be the first time I made myself look foolish. I don't feel that is the case here. But I am incredibly embarassed for you.
     
  14. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    You can't even find the story, so you don't even know what I'm drawing conclusions from. According to you, I completely made the story up. At least I have video evidence to back up my conclusions. It's disappointing that someone with so many degrees would ask for a link to porn to be posted against TOS, not wait for any evidence, and come to the conclusion that I made the story up because you failed at a Google search. Considering that other people were able to find the video without making a baseless attack, you do look foolish.

    Also, yay for reading comprehension. I never alleged that the woman had a substance abuse problem. I made a response to your uninformed comments about the sex industry. But, this isn't the first time you failed at reading comprehension here.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 22, 2016
  15. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Before you lecture me about reading comprehension you should probably reread what I wrote. I did find the story. Perhaps not the same one as you but I found it on a Nigerian blog. I said I couldn't find a reliable source. If your source posts actual porn as proof then I'd venture your source isn't entirely reliable either.

    Untrue. I acknowledged that the story is circulating. According to me, you accepted that story despite not having a reliable source of information. That's a pretty big difference. Im saying you used a source that you would otherwise never rely on because it conventionally fit with your chosen narrative that ITT drove a woman to degradation. Of course, the other folks who appeared in those commercials seem to be getting along fine.

    No, you have porn. And a website displaying porn. Even if it definitively proves to be the same person that still doesn't show any relationship between her porn career and her ITT Tech education.

    This, folks, is a sanantone deflection. I asked for reliable evidence. She has none. All she has is a porn video which, apparently, she feels is conclusive proof of...well...something. I don't want to see the porn. I want to see proof. If the porn is your only proof then, perhaps, you ought reconsider the strength of your position.

    Incidentally, there were multiple conservative news sites that claimed to have definitive proof that Hillary Clinton's personal physician was with her prior to her 9/11 Memorial collapse. They put up photos. They drew lines to look like they had conducted some sort of sophisticated facial recognition. And, in the end, the New York Post, of all outlets, called BS and properly identified the woman.

    I eagerly await any form of actual proof. I don't want or need proof that the young woman, at some point, engaged in an adult film. That is really none of my business. I want proof of your earlier statements that she was driven by desperation to work in porn and that said desperation was caused by her ITT tech degree making her useless in the marketplace.

    It takes talent to play a victim card in the midst of an ad hominem attack. Bravo.

    I never said anything about substance abuse and the woman in question. My "uninformed comment" was merely that some people star in porn for reasons other than sheer desperation. Maybe she was doing fine and did it to help pay for a kitchen remodel. I don't know. Neither do you. But that didn't stop you from swinging back with how horrible porn was in an attempt to paint it as a world that virtually no sensible person would choose unless forced by circumstance.

    Again, you chose your conclusion well before you began cherry picking facts.

    You also tend to build up straw men whenever you feel that someone is disagreeing with your position. If I were to say "the sky is blue" I have no doubt you'd respond by linking to photos of non-blue skies and probably find some obscure blog post about how people who identify the sky as "blue" have a high likelihood of erectile dysfunction. Then, of course, accuse me of poor research because I refuse to accept your porn blog as a reliable source and begin demanding apologies.

    If anyone is owed apologies I'd say it is the originators of the porn story and all who spread it (you included) to the women in those ads who are proven to have advanced their careers with ITT Tech degrees. One woman went from being a swing manager (the lowest level manager) at McDonalds to being an engineer at Sprint. Her efforts should be applauded. Instead they have been degraded, first by ITT Tech's recent conduct, and second by people who just need to find new and innovative ways to crap on the school.

    This is a new low.
     
  16. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    All I said is that I thought your assumptions were too broad. I'm not angry about it, though, I was just remarking. "Resident Gadfly", it's what I do here. :smile:
     
  17. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Ugh. The video has a mix of her commercials and clips her porn video where the guy she's with talks about her doing this because of the economy. Once again, you've made one of your unnecessarily long posts to nowhere. I've discussed further evidence with people on the other forum who just happen to have more class. If you want to see it, you can find it yourself. You're the only one making a big deal about it, and I'm not going to pander to your rudely delivered demands. I, honestly, do not care to prove anything to you because you're just not that important. I will continue to discuss this with others. If you're going to request something of someone, you could try having more tact. From now on, I'm just going to ignore you because you rarely post anything worth reading. So, you can continue with your fake outrage all you want.

    That is not all you said. You basically cosigned Neuhaus' idiotic claim that I made up the story or got it from a Nigerian website.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 23, 2016
  18. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I did no such thing.
     
  19. edowave

    edowave Active Member

    A couple of years ago I visited Gainesville with a bunch of guys, all alums from various UF degree programs to watch a Gators home game. After the game, we decided to go to a strip club. Right after we are seated, one of my friends noticed one of the strippers was an MBA grad from his cohort. She recognized him too, walked up to him, and started chatting with him - topless. Talk about awkward situation.

    It seems kinda related to the topic, so I thought I'd share.
     
  20. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Because of the economy? I thought it was because her ITT Tech education had basically relegated her to the deepest depths of desperation?

    I don't have any outrage fake or otherwise. You, on the other hand, have been lashing out non-stop. What the matter essentially comes down to is that you are attempting to draw some broad conclusions about the life of a person you never met and extend those conclusions to her school of choice because you don't like her school. As your only source is, by your own admission in the first post, "a celebrity gossip site" which relies on a porn flick that they edited to show you comparison shots I think that's a pretty weak position.

    But you also speculated that her debt load was enormous and forced her into porn. Does the video say this as well?


    And the personal attacks continue.

    Since this thread is all about making assumptions about another person's life am I way off to think that your adult life has been plagued with your work life being impacted by taking the moral high ground and countless times when people ganged up on you in the workplace? Has your life been a constant struggle of you, the sole voice of reason, yelling into a sea of stupidity?

    I owe you absolutely nothing. Nobody does. But when you come in making sweeping claims about a person and a school based upon a porn movie you saw on another website I think you probably shouldn't be surprised when someone challenges you on the quality of your source.

    I also fail to see where Steve "consigned" anything I've said. He made his own point. He just happened to make it within a post or two of what I said. But it seems that anything shy of glowing adulation for your words is interpreted by you as intense, personal and unacceptable attacks. Sounds like a heck of a way to go through life.

    This isn't an "issue" in higher Education. This is, at best, one individual who attended the school and was featured in commercials (not the same thing as a spokeswoman) whose life fell apart. I'm sure that every school has at least a handful of former students with tumultuous private lives.

    It's sensationalism. And I'd expect someone with eyes on a doctorate would have approached the downfall of ITT Tech with a more objective eye rather than a TMZ lens. That isn't outrage. It's disappointment that, if you complete your PhD, academia will likely have another Melissa Click unleashed upon it.
     
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