Jesse Baalman

Staff writer

Coming from a freshman’s perspective, staying on campus or going home for Labor Day can be a tough decision. Distance is one of the determining factors as always, but a trip home can be exactly what someone needs or the opposite.

For freshmen, a trip home for Labor Day can make it harder for students to adjust to life away from home. For someone trying to get over homesickness, staying on-campus can be hard but also beneficial. All-in-all, seeing friends and family for the holiday is never a bad thing for a first-year student. So my advice to students is to do whatever they think they need this weekend, but the best thing for me is to do this weekend is to drive four hours back to southern Illinois to make sure my friends and family haven’t forgotten about me.

Danielle Keys

Staff writer

I believe students should stay at school during the Labor Day weekend. I think it is way too early to go home because students have not even gotten a feel for the campus yet.

One of the reasons I chose to stay is because my sorority sisters and I invite our friends over to have a bonfire and play volleyball in our backyard. Not only do I get to spend time with my sisters, but I also get to meet new people and make new connections. Not going home is a great way to get involved, meet new people and have some fun.

There are so many things happening off-campus as well as on-campus that it would be a crime to miss out on an opportunity to bond with people on your floor or someone you met in class — save another weekend to go home.

Darius Parker

Staff writer

Labor Day isn’t just a time to enjoy that extra weekend day, but a day to reflect and honor the American labor movement. Why waste a perfectly good chance to go all the way home when you’ve already started a journey towards something great here at NIU?

My first Labor Day away from home, I was booked to host a dance competition at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. While this isn’t quite common, I’d still say students should do something out of their comfort zone because going home is easy. Students could plan a day with their new friends to cook dinner or head to the movies. Make your mark fellow Huskies — the friends and memories you make in college will be there for the rest of college, so make it count.

Jay Ibarra

Scene Editor

I understand how tricky the choice can be to go home or not, considering when Labor Day weekend falls, but students should base their decision largely off of their friends — I’m not kidding. I transferred to NIU during my senior year, and I really miss my college friends from Illinois State University. How could I not? They were my college buddies who I was with for three years and spent three Labor Days with having barbecues and laughing about life with.

After college, students will never get the time back with the friends they’ve spent four or even five years with, so something as small as Labor Day calls for a celebration. If students don’t go home, I urge them to stay and make memories here with friends because there’s never a time like college.