Nick McCombs: Finding His Passion in Psychology and Research

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Nick McCombs was an exceptionally smart kid in Normal, Illinois, and in elementary school, he tested into a program for gifted children. But as the assignments got more difficult over the years, his performance declined. “Once I had to work hard, it felt like I wasn’t smart,” he remembers. “I didn’t study and I didn’t do the work.” He barely graduated from high school and took three years to get an associate degree from the local community college. Then he transferred to Hunter College in New York City looking for a fresh start but his bad study habits followed him. He started failing classes and felt like he was wasting his tuition money.

McCombs dropped out and increased his hours as a server at an organic health food restaurant in Brooklyn. He started reading self-help and psychology books to figure out his next step. A regular customer recommended he tackle a book titled “Radical Acceptance” by Buddhist writer Tara Brach. The idea of being compassionate with himself resonated deeply and McCombs decided to forgive himself for quitting college.

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He had always been interested in psychology and curious about why people acted the way they did but some people had told him that a career in psychology took years of schooling and didn’t pay well. “But once I started reading the books, I realized this was my interest and I should follow it. I started finding my passion,” he says. McCombs had moved back to Illinois to be closer to family and friends and was working at a running shoe store in Chicago when he applied and was accepted at the University of Colorado Denver.

In 2015 he moved West with his girlfriend to make a new start. “I had this hard class and I learned how to study for tests. I’m 29 and I’m like, ‘Oh, this is how you study.’ Things started to click.” One of his professors offered McCombs a spot in his research lab during his junior year. McCombs found himself hooking people up to machines to test their sweat response during a series of attention tests that became increasingly more stressful. “It was exciting. It was fun,” he says. McCombs was making progress in other parts of his life as well. He ran his first marathon after months of training for it.

He graduated in 2018 with a degree in psychology and married his girlfriend. The two of them moved back to Chicago, and he applied for a job at the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research (CROR) at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. He didn’t hear back. A few months later, he saw the same job posted and he applied again, this time with a better cover letter. His persistence paid off and he was hired in 2019 as a research assistant on studies related to custom orthotic devices and robotic exoskeletons.

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Lindsay DuBois, his supervisor, says McCombs is a joy to work with. “Nick is a character. He’s very witty and a little sarcastic on the outside but on the inside, he deeply cares about the work. He wants everyone to do well and be supported,” she says. “He knows how to fight for himself and he advocates for other people, too.  He is always thinking about the next couple of steps and trying to identify opportunities where we could innovate a little bit more.”

With two years of research experience under his belt, McCombs plans to apply to graduate programs in psychology in the Chicago area later this year. Now 33, he realizes that means he is unlikely to finish a PhD before he is 40. “When I think about that, it can feel like I’m so far behind,” he says. “But there isn’t a time limit on doing what you want to do in your life. I’m also ready and willing to pivot as I get more information. I’m always trying to stay agile.”