While most students focus on their job, playing intramurals or being involved in groups on campus in their spare time, senior Nathan Nickens is thinking differently.

Nickens decided to devote his time to running for the Ohio Senate. He has been campaigning for months to have the opportunity to represent District Two in the Ohio Legislature. Although this may seem like a time-consuming task, Nickens has been able to balance school and campaigning.

“It’s really hard, but I compare people running for office to those who go to school while punching a time card,” he said. “It keeps you really busy, I have had to skip a class here and there.”

He is currently a senior at the University majoring in political science with a minor in music. He is taking twelve credit hours.

Nickens’ main platform in his campaign has centered around education. He said education issues are the main reason he decided to run.

“The system of funding our public schools has been broken since 1991, and the ability came available to raise the issue in a high profile campaign,” he said. “If we value education as a state as we value national security as a nation we wouldn’t have levies.”

He hopes to improve education through better funding.

“I think that while the argument can be made that you can’t always throw money at a problem, it is important to note that education is malfunded.”

He went on to say that the loss of jobs in Ohio should not be blamed on the President, but the lack of funding for education. He said that when education programs are unfunded it prevents people from obtaining higher education to train for the new jobs that are available in Ohio.

While Nickens is running on the Democratic ticket, he said that his beliefs can appeal to both political parties.

“The issues that we are running on are not Democrat or Republican, we are running on what we believe in.”

Nickens is the first in his family to run for public office, so he has made a great effort to get his name out there. He and his campaign have knocked on doors and talked on television and radio stations to introduce himself and his beliefs.

“Local campaigns like this are about knocking on doors, shaking hands and kissing babies,” he said. “We have ran a campaign of issues with lots of mail.”

Nickens, who is 22 years old, said that he has received some scepticism about his age. He is more than half the age of his Republican opponent, Randy Gardner. However, Gardner has not made the age an issue because he was around Nickens age when he ran for public office.

“What the candidate has to offer at any level of any government is not based on age,” Nickens said.

Nickens said that if he is elected he hopes to work with other members of the legislature on education and wants to do the best that he can for taxpayers.

“If I can’t come back in four years and campaign on a record of success and achievement, I pledge not to run again,” he said.