There’s a place to go on campus for students who need help sorting out their thoughts.

NIU’s Counseling and Student Development Center, at the Campus Life Building, Suite 200, encourages students to stop in.

The center, which most students seem unaware of, offers career counseling and psychological counseling for students.

“They should get info out there,” said Hani Abubakar, a junior computer science major, who had never heard of the center. “They do a good thing, but if you’ve never heard of them, how are you going to use them?”

Center director Kathy Hotelling explained its purpose.

“Our reason for being here is to support the student in their effort to be a student,” director Kathy Hotelling said. “When we have psychological stressors in our life, they affect our ability to be successful students, successful workers.”

Students visit the center for a variety of concerns, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, relationship difficulties and matters of sexual assault.

Hotelling said the center has 15 full-time counselors and psychologists, but space for appointments can fill up quickly, especially at the end of the school year.

“If people are in crisis, we see them no matter how full we are,” she said. “Certainly we’d see somebody who’s feeling very suicidal or if something just happened.”

Center counselors are available 24 hours a day for such a crisis, but they can’t do any good if people don’t know about them.

“You can’t expect people to take advantage of something they don’t know about,” senior OMIS major Samrah Shakeel said.

Abubakar suggested including information in new-student packets.

“[The center] would especially benefit new students,” he said. “The workload is different here. It’s more difficult.”

Junior journalism major John DiCiurcio said he sees the positive aspects of the center.

“There’s got to be a place where people can go to talk,” he said. “You can’t always go up to your friends and talk about it.”

Hotelling said it’s important for students to shed the stigmas of coming to a counseling center.

“I think it’s really important that they understand it doesn’t mean they’re ‘crazy,’” she said. “Everyone has stressors, obstacles, events in their life that are difficult to handle.”

To make an appointment or for more information about the Counseling and Student Development Center, call 753-1206.