{"id":3983,"date":"2020-03-05T16:16:43","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T00:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palomar.edu\/news\/?p=3983"},"modified":"2025-04-23T09:41:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:41:37","slug":"nokes-possible-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palomar.edu\/news\/nokes-possible-profile\/","title":{"rendered":"A textbook transition: inmate to student ambassador"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kory Nokes spent five years behind bars before entering Palomar\u2019s Transitions program for formerly incarcerated students. \u201cPalomar made it possible for me to achieve my true potential,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

SAN MARCOS \u2014 Not long after being booked into state prison, Kory Nokes realized he was going to be reminded on a daily basis that he lived at rock bottom.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I put my clothes on, it said \u2018prisoner\u2019 on them,\u201d he recalled. \u201cNo privacy\u2014the guards, the sounds, the violence. But I decided I wasn\u2019t going to keep going down. There was only one way I was willing to go, and that was up. I started investing in myself every day, to slowly chip away at this mountain I had in front of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In education, Nokes found his way out, and it\u2019s still carrying him toward his lofty goals, nearly a year after his release.<\/p>\n

\u201cI owe everything to my education. It\u2019s opened doors for me, it\u2019s allowed me to see the world in an entirely different way,\u201d he said. \u201cPalomar made it possible for me to achieve my true potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January, researchers at Stanford Law School published a report citing a national \u201cmovement to expand higher education to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students,\u201d with 19 community colleges in California alone providing full-credit, face-to-face classes in \u201cnearly all of the state\u2019s 35 prisons.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study found just shy of 6,000 inmates enrolled, and more than 50 \u201csuccess programs and student clubs for formerly incarcerated students\u201d on college and university campuses, serving more than 1,000 students in 2019.<\/p>\n

At Palomar, the \u201cCorrections-to-College\u201d program is known as Transitions, and it includes a summer academy, as well as ongoing support for formerly incarcerated or \u201cjustice involved\u201d students. Through a groundbreaking partnership with the San Diego County Sheriff\u2019s Department, the college also provides credit courses inside the Vista Detention Facility<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Nokes got the opportunity to enroll in community college behind bars, one of the classes he had to take was algebra. That\u2019s when he discovered that he loved mathematics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ended up meeting this guy who tutored me, and I did very well in the class. He was like, \u2018So you\u2019re taking the next math class, right?\u2019 So I went into college algebra, aced the class. Then trigonometry\u2014aced it. Then pre-calculus\u2014aced it. All behind bars, with no teacher, just this one guy, an inmate, tutoring me once a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a textbook, I had a calculator, and I had a pencil. I got to the point where I realized there was no problem I couldn\u2019t solve if I tried long enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Nokes is a student employee at Palomar, serving as a Peer Mentor in the Counseling Department as well as a Student Ambassador. After completing the Transitions program last summer, he was chosen by his cohort to speak at the program\u2019s graduation ceremony, and he has since represented the college at other regional events.<\/p>\n

Nokes said he plans to transfer to a four-year university and ultimately pursue a PhD in math. He said he wouldn\u2019t be on the path he\u2019s on now without the support he found in the Transitions community at Palomar.<\/p>\n

\u201cRe-entry was very, very different than I anticipated,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThere was a lot of stress. The world is faster now. I was fortunate to have a friend who referred me to the Transitions program. I started the program a few months after I paroled, and it basically gave me a safe place to land. There were people here who had experienced what I experienced.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had zero social capital coming out of prison,\u201d he added. \u201cTransitions gives people a chance, regardless of what happened. The reality is, a lot of people need love, they need support\u2014and that\u2019s what they did for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kory Nokes spent five years behind bars before entering Palomar\u2019s Transitions program for formerly incarcerated students. \u201cPalomar made it possible for me to achieve my true potential,\u201d he says. SAN MARCOS \u2014 Not long after being booked into state prison, Kory Nokes realized he was going to be reminded on a daily basis that he… \u00a0Continue Reading: A textbook transition: inmate to student ambassador<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10413,"featured_media":3986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9,23,50,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carousel","category-features","category-home","category-possible","category-slider"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA textbook transition: inmate to student ambassador - Palomar News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.palomar.edu\/news\/nokes-possible-profile\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A textbook transition: inmate to student ambassador - Palomar News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kory Nokes spent five years behind bars before entering Palomar\u2019s Transitions program for formerly incarcerated students. \u201cPalomar made it possible for me to achieve my true potential,\u201d he says. 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