If you are new to NIU, this weekend marks the first time you will have to make the decision of whether or not to stay in DeKalb over the weekend. If you are homesick, low on money or just generally worried about how much a town that celebrates corn so ostentatiously has to offer for entertainment, I understand your apprehension.

However, in the immortal words of Sarah Palin, I hope the following paragraphs “refudiate” your reservations and convince you that staying for the majority of weekends during your time at NIU is beneficial to you and the university as a whole.

Sure going home every weekend affords you certain luxuries such as free laundry, home-cooked meals and familiar faces, but at what cost?

First off, you have already paid for football tickets for the entire season, whether you know it or not. Four of the five home games scheduled for this season take place on Saturdays.

Not a football fan? That’s okay. Maybe music is more your thing. If so, you could see Drake at the Convocation Center on Oct. 17.

Not into rap either? Okay, you sound a little hard to please, but maybe you need more variety for your dollar. Well, lucky for you, Kickstand Productions is launching its new festival, Middlewest Fest, on the weekend of Sept. 10-11.

The event will feature almost 70 artists, ranging from nationally known acts like Hawthorne Heights and Ha Ha Tonka to more homegrown favorites like The Felix Culpa, as well as a short film festival and will take place at various downtown establishments.

If none of these upcoming events that I have listed off the top of my head are enough to keep you on campus, then think about the quality of your college experience as a whole.

College is the first real chance you get to meet people from different backgrounds who have a wide array of different experiences, perspectives and beliefs.

I’m not saying all of your high school friends are essentially the same person.

However, in my opinion, going your whole life without befriending somebody from outside of your hometown is the next saddest thing to living alone in a house of mirrors and conversing with echoes.

If you are still wary of staying this weekend, consider what the constant homeward migration of the student body does to NIU’s reputation. As a transfer student from University of Wisconsin-Madison, a perennial contender for the somewhat arbitrary title of top party school in the country, I was a little disappointed when the first three people I talked to on campus used the term “suitcase college.”

That is not to say I wanted to stumble between bars and keggers every Saturday night, but what do the words “suitcase college” really do for a school’s reputation?

It’s not like other universities prohibit their students from going home on the weekends. They just usually prefer not to because they tend to have more fun on campus with their friends.

So this weekend, maybe you should stick around and try making NIU the type of campus you would prefer not to evacuate every five days.